Wales!

Last weekend, a group of nine of us went to Wales for what is called the Preselli Venture Weekend. It is in southwest Wales, which was like a 5 hour train ride away. We left on Friday night and arrived around dinner time. The facilities were very nice and the food was very good. The weekend included three outdoor activities: sea kayaking, hiking and coasteering.

Saturday morning we got up around 8 to start our first activity, sea kayaking. We geared up in a full wet suit, got a mini crash course in the basic safety tips. We took off from a small, rocky beach and kayaked our way through St. George's Sea. The instructors were great, they took us along the coast, into caves and through rock formations. Along the way, they would stop and give us random facts about the places we were kayaking through. Overall, we ended up kayaking for about 3 hours, at each point we were all exhausted and headed back to Preselli for lunch.

After eating, the nine of us headed out for a seven mile hike along the coast. The views were absolutely beautiful. Luckily, both activities on Saturday were just the nine of us, so we all had a lot of fun spending a weekend together outside the city life. We stopped for a lot of pictures. There was also a running bet going at Preselli that you won a prize if you rode a sheep (which there were hundreds of along the coast). So of course, all the boys had to try. Everyone was unsuccessful (they are a lot faster than you would think), but it provided some good entertainment. That night, we all had dinner, then shared a few drinks around a bonfire. The perfect ending to an amazing day.

The next morning we got up again around 8 to head out for our third and final activity, coasteering. Coasteering consists of swimming, climbing rocks and jumping off cliffs. We got really dressed up in a lot of wet suit gear since we would actually be swimming in the cold water. Once we arrived at the beach, the first thing our instructors made us do was to get into the water and go under. At the time we were miserable, but we realized that it was the only way to get in without wasting an hour easing into it. The water was beyond cold, it immediately took our breath away. But our instructors didn't give us anytime to focus on that, thankfully we started immediately swimming out towards the cliffs. Your body got used to the water pretty quickly thanks to the wet suits, but your hands FROZE (until they went numb after like 10 minutes). But once we actually started climbing and jumping, any thoughts of being cold left your mind. Climbing the rocks was very cool because you knew that not many people have been there, because it is only accessible through this type of activity. Towards the end, our instructor finally found a spot for us to cliff dive. We started out small, jumping off at a spot only ten feet high. We gradually increased the height, our final jump was around 30 feet high. We were all kind of bummed out because the tide was too low to jump from any higher. After everyone jumped the two instructors did some cool tricks before we swam back to the beach. Overall, this was all of our favorite activity. It was a great end to the weekend.


We got back to Preselli, we ate lunch, showered and packed up to head back to London. We got dropped off at the train station and all passed out the minute we hit our seats. Overall, it was definitely one of the favorite weekends for the nine of us.

Spring Break: Germany

Well after some trouble with the security at the Venice airport, we finally made it into Cologne, Germany on Thursday night. Steve's friend from high school, Alex, moved to Germany with her family a couple years ago. So she picked us up from the airport and drove us 45 minutes back to her hometown of Grefrath. Their house was very cool and her family was very excited for our visit. After settling our stuff down into our room, her mom had a home cooked (!!!) meal of chicken quesadillas and some various German finger foods. The food was very good. After we all ate, showered and emailed our parents, we went to bed for a busy day the next day.

On Friday, we woke up and had another incredible home cooked meal. The breakfast was absolutely amazing before we headed out for downtown Cologne. First we hit a Nazi Museum, which was a Gestapo Jail while Hitler was in power. The entire building just gives you the chills. The audio guide first took you downstairs to the cells. As seen in the picture, the cells were only suppose to be used for one or two people, but the Nazis would shove up to 30 people into one cell at any given time! There were scratchings all over the walls, some of which were translated, making the suffering of these people even more painfully obvious. These notes were about their terrible experiences, goodbye notes to loved ones and people expressing their deepest regrets. The upstairs of the building gave a history of the Nazi regime. It was a very sobering experience.

Next, we headed over to the huge Cathedral in Cologne. The structure was stunning and the inside was beautiful too, it was very Gothic. We paid an extra euro to climb over 500 stairs to the top of the Cathedral. The view was not as good as in Rome and Florence, but it was still very cool. You crossed the Cathedral bells, so we waited for the bells to ring. It was insanely loud, but cool to witness. We headed down from the Cathedral to meet up with Alex to make our way to Hamburg.

To get from Cologne to Hamburg, we drove on the Autobahn. And I always knew that cars didn't have speed limits, but I was amazed that cars really do go scary fast. Alex let Rock drive for a majority of the time. We maxed out at around 170 kilos/hour (which is about 105 mph). I thought I would be really nervous about the fast driving, but drivers are very respectful of the rules or the road and follow them very closely. I never felt unsafe in the 5 hour drive. When we finally arrived in Hamburg, we went grocery shopping, settled down in Alex's apartment and made some dinner. The next day, we took a bus tour of the city to learn about it. We learned that Hamburg was not only beautiful, but has more bridges than both Amsterdam and Venice, that it has the second biggest port in Europe and that the Beatles were"discovered" there. For the rest of the day, we just walked around and got ready for the night.

That night we went to the street of bars in Hamburg, called the Reeperbahn. It is full of clubs and bars that you can just walk in and out of. It was a lot of fun, German night life is crazy. We went into the bar that the Beatles were supposedly discovered. They played something like 700+ hours of concert at this one bar. They have the Beatles figures outside the bar that you can stand in, as you can see in the picture. Hamburg also has a red light district, so of course the boys had to see it. This was VERY different than the Red Light District of Amsterdam. I held both boys hands and still got very insulted. The girls would swear at me, call me crude names and even spit on me. At the end, one of the "pimps" told me very harshly to get out. We quickly obeyed and I had the boys stay at my immediate side for the rest of the night.

The next day, we were headed back for London. Although it was an amazing trip and every second was filled with fun and excitement, the three of us were glad to be going home. We made one final trip around the city, had some dinner and headed home. Overall, spring break was some of the most amazing ten days of my life.

Spring Break: Venice

Once we got on the train, my stomach got really upset so I tried to sleep it off. However, when we arrived around dinner time, my stomach was still upset. I tried to make it to the hostel, but after getting lost a bunch of times, I knew it was going to be a while before we got there. I headed into the closest shop I could find and begged to use the bathroom using the few Italian phrases I knew, even offering a few euros. However, the owner did not take me seriously and told me to wait. I ended up just grabbing his garbage can, which the owner obviously was not too appreciative of. Steve came in to help me, so as soon as he walked in I decided to just run to the bathroom. When I got out the owner was screaming "Bafangula! Bafangula!" (I'll let you use your imagination to translate that one). We finally got to the hostel with the help of an old woman who witnessed my little episode in the shop. I slept for the rest of the night.

The next day, I was still feeling pretty lousy, but I couldn't let that stop me from enjoying my short time in Venice. So I stopped at a drug store to pick up some medicine and we headed out. Luckily, Venice is a very chill city. We mostly just walked around, stopping at various cafes for spritzas (their native orange drink), capachinos, and in my case, a little gelato. It was very relaxing, walking along the canals, enjoying the nice weather and each others company. We made our way to St. Mark's Square. We bought a piece of bread to feed the pigeons. The boys told me I had to do it, so I held out my hand so the pigeons could eat it. It ended up being a really funny experience, as you can see from the picture.

We decided to grab (more) gelato and find a gondola ride. It was pretty expensive (twenty euros each for a half hour ride) but it was one of the few things you couldn't go to Venice and not experience. It was cool to get a ride around the city in a gondola. Our driver would stop to point a few major places along the way as well.

After we got off, we headed back to our hostel to wash up for dinner. We went to this little pub for some paninis and a futbol match. Manchester United (a UK favorite of ours) was actually playing. We stayed for the whole game, chatting with some random people that were also watching the game. One of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting new people and hearing all the crazy stories and different experiences everyone has. After the game, it was pretty late so we headed back to our hostel and went to bed.

The next day, we didn't leave for Germany until around 4, so we woke up around 11, packed up and headed out. We found a great little cafe along the Grand Canal. Once again, we all sat in amazement on our incredible fortune to be lounging in Venice along the Grand Canal waiting for our flight to Germany. There were a lot of dogs along the canal so we played with them for a while. We took a water taxi to the bus station which is outside of the city. It was cool to end our visit to Venice with a water taxi. We made our way to the airport for our flight to Cologne, Germany.

Spring Break: Florence

On Sunday night, we finally arrived in Florence. We got out of the train station completely exhausted from our crazy weekend in Rome and immediately started searching for our hostel, which was very nice and spacious. It was about a fifteen minute walk from the train station. That night, we were all pretty cranky so we just had dinner and went to bed very early to catch up on the sleep we didn't get in Rome.


The next morning we woke up early. We decided to rent bikes to travel around the city on our only full day there. It ended up being an amazing decision. The bikes were a ton of fun to ride and made seeing all the sites in one day very easy. This is a picture of Rock and I riding our bikes down an alley towards the Duomo.



First we hit the Duomo, the famous Cathedral in Florence. The outside of the church was beautiful, with a colorful exterior. However, the inside of the church was very dark and plain. We didn't spend much time looking around because there wasn't much to look at. However, there was a beautiful dome, so once again we decided to pay a few euros to climb to the top. Seeing the dome up close was amazing, bringing you face to face with the paintings, which depicted a view of heaven vs. hell. If you weren't scared of hell before seeing this dome, you definitely were after seeing this painting up close. We then headed to the top of the dome. Once again, the view was very cool. You could see the entire view of the city from the top. We walked around for a while before heading down to move on to our next destination.




We then headed over to Michelangelo Hill. The walk up was pretty brutal. However, at the top, there was an amazing view accompanied by a gelato shop. So we got some more gelato and enjoyed the view. However, the wind picked up and it got pretty chilly so we headed back down.

For the rest of the day, we just rode our bikes around, stopping at the occasional market to pick up some small souvenirs. We had a lot of fun just weaving in and out of traffic, riding down small alleyways and through piazzas. Overall, it was a really fun day. The night was spent hanging out in our hostel, where we met some very interesting people from Australia. We also met an architect from the US; he got laid off because of the recession and decided to pack up and travel around Europe alone to fill up his sketch book. The three of us spent most of the night speaking to these three people, who each had some pretty amazing travel stories. We headed out for a few drinks before going to bed.

The next morning, we went to the San Marco Museum, where the statue of David is located. We waited in line for about twenty minutes, during which we signed the wall with the hope it would be there if we ever returned. Before seeing David, we went to another exhibit, which held ancient musical instruments. It was very cool. Steve is really into music so he was helpful explaining the instruments he recognized. We then headed over to the David, where we sat in awe for a while. The statue is so perfectly sculpted and designed. Once again, I had the boys hide me so I could sneak a picture.

We then packed up our stuff before heading to the train station. This time, we were off to Venice.

Finally... Spring Break: Roma

Sorry it's been so long since I have updated this thing, but I have been very, very busy. Now that I finally have a minute to catch my breath, I thought I should update everyone on what I have been up to.

Spring Break was absolutely amazing... some of the busiest, craziest ten days of my life. To start off with, we could not have asked for better weather for the entire trip. Everyday was sunny and warm, I almost didn't bring enough clothes to deal with the heat. Secondly, for anyone that is traveling anywhere in Europe, I highly recommend buying the Rick Steve's guidebook. This man gave us detailed tours and facts about everything, from the major tourist attractions to all the interesting little places that are easy to miss if you aren't looking for them. Overall, I cannot describe how much fun I had over spring break. There is so much to write about that I'm going to have to break it up into different posts for each city.

Thursday, March 5th, I headed to Rome with my two friends, Steve McLean and Steve Rock. We got in pretty late, but we wanted to see our John Carroll friends that study in Rome before they headed out for their spring break trip early the next morning. They picked us up from the airport and we headed out to their friend's apartment that we would be staying in. It was in the absolute perfect location, in a little part of the city called Piazza Trilusa. Piazza Trilusa is known as the hip, young part of town, often compared to SoHo in NYC. Her apartment building was hidden, but it was very nice and spacious. We each got a free couch to sleep on so we weren't complaining. We all went out for a few drinks to celebrate Steve's 20th birthday.

The next morning, Steve, Rock and I got up at around 8am ready to explore. First, we hit the Campo Market where we bought fresh cheese, bread and salami to make sandwiches for the day. We then headed out in search for the Pantheon. However, on our journey we stumbled upon the Sacred Area of Largo Argentina, where Ceaser was killed. It was very cool because these ancient ruins are literally right in middle of the city. For some reason, there were cats everywhere. There was even a government sign that warned people that even though the cats were immunized, they should refrain from touching them. The government allows these ancient ruins to serve as a home to hundreds of stray cats.

We continued walking until we hit the Pantheon. The Pantheon was breathtaking. It is amazing that the Romans were able to build all of these amazing buildings without the kind of technology we enjoy today. The inside dome was built perfectly semetrical. The artwork, the altar and the tombs were beautiful. Raphael was actually buried there.

Next we hit the Trevi Fountain, which was probably our favorite part of Rome. We got some gelato and sat on the edge of the water. We each threw a coin in the fountain for some good luck too. We finally just sat on the surrounding benches for an hour just hanging out. It is probably the best place in the world to people watch. The weather was absolutely beautiful, so we decided to take advantage and soak up some sun. We read from Rick Steve that the Fountain was still filled by the Roman aquaducts with clean water. So we decided to try the water, which tasted clean, but we were all a little grossed out when we realized all the change that was thrown in there by thousands of people everyday. Oh well.
When we finally got ourselves to move on, we hit the Spanish Steps. We sat on the steps for a while just soaking in the fact that we were lucky enough to be on spring break in Europe with no schedule or any real responsibility. It was an incredible feeling. We sat there for a bit before climbing to the top and heading in the direction we thought the Colloseum was in. However, we were wrong. We ended up finding this amazing hill filled with gardens. From the top, you could see a bird's eye view of the city. You could see everything, including the government building, the Colloseum and the Vatican. So it ended up being pretty convenient that we took a wrong turn. After getting some good pictures, we headed to the Roman Forum and the Colloseum.

Once we got to the Forum, we were very impressed. This was the area that held the most important buildings in ancient times, from government buildings to royal residences. Nothing with real structure was still standing, but many different parts of the various buildings were still standing. After reading some Rick Steve's facts, we had an even greater appreciation for the amazing advancements of the Romans. We ended up spending a little too much time there before we headed over to the Colosseum. After walking around the entire Colosseum, we finally found the entrance, realizing that we missed the last entrance by ten minutes. So we brushed that off and decided to explore the surrounding area before heading home for dinner. That night we celebrated Steve's actual birthday by going to a night club. The club, called Gilda, actually let American students in for free. We were absolutely amazed, because Americans usually get the highest entrance fees in London. The club was very cool, with lounging rooms, dancing area and a stage. That night, the main event was a dance competition, so there were hip hop and break dancing groups competing. The audience got really into it, it was very cool.

The next morning we got up early again for a view of the Vatican. We got lucky, because usually Saturdays have extremely long lines, but we only waited for about ten minutes. After taking a self-guided tour around St. Peter's Basilica (thanks Rick Steve), we decided to pay the 7 euros to climb to the top of the dome, which is over 100 yards high. It was a pretty crazy walk, which tiny slanted hall ways, spiral staircases with a rope hanging from the ceiling for a railing, and tiny steps. After the brutal climb up, we realized that the view was definitely worth the walk up. It was breathtaking. The three of us stood there speechless for over five minutes before being able to share our amazement. It was probably the best view I have ever seen. Walking around the entire dome allowed you to see the entire city of Rome from every angle. Amazing. After spending a half hour up there, we headed down to see the Sistine Chapel. We moved through the Vatican museum pretty quickly, since we didn't have much more time. We finally got to the Sistine Chapel and were once again awestruck. The ceiling was my favorite part, with the famous picture of God and Adam touching fingers, signifying God's creation of man. Of course, we had to sneak a picture. So the boys hid me while I snook a few photos.

After that, we made our way over the Roman Olympic Stadium for a futbol match. Rome played Udinese, tying the game with a score of 1-1. The match itself was insane. The fans are absolutely crazy, never ceasing to wave their enormous flags and cheering very loudly the entire game. The atmosphere did not allow you to relax for a second, it was so exciting. That night, we met up with around 6 other John Carroll kids from London for a pub crawl. The pub crawl involved one main bar, three more bars and free entrance into a club, which coincidentally was Gilda again. Overall, it was a lot of fun for a group of the London students to go out together in a different city.

The next morning, our last day in Rome, we once again got up early and went for the Colosseum tour. Once again, Rick Steve came in big, giving us a self-guided tour with very interesting facts. We spent about an hour in there before heading back to our friend's apartment, where we learned that the Pope was speaking that day. So we booked it over to the Vatican just in time to witness the Pope. It was absolutely amazing, we got very lucky because not many people can say they saw the Pope speak. He spoke in about 6 different languages, so we listened closely for the English section. He didn't say much and it was very hard to hear over the crowd's cheers, but we were excited nonetheless. Afterward, we packed up and headed for the train station. We were on our way to Florence. The train ride was absolutely beautiful, we got a great view of the Italian countryside.

Midterm Week

This has by far been the easiest semester I have ever had and midterms week did not disappoint. I had a short paper due Monday and an exam Thursday morning. Other than that, I have been enjoying the nice weather. It had been absolutely beautiful out, mid 50s everyday. Last Thursday and Friday, we sat in the park, played frisbee and drank some wine. It was very relaxing and a lot of fun. We actually saw a band getting photographed for their first album cover. It was pretty hysterical because they were this long haired heavy metal band getting photographed in this beautiful park.

Taylor arrived on Saturday morning, so I went to pick her up from the train station. We have been having a blast. I have been playing tour guide, taking her around to all the major tourist stuff and the small, unknown cool things to do around London as well. On Sunday afternoon, a group of us went on the London Eye, which is the big feris wheel on the Thames River across from Big Ben. It was 15 pounds and definitely worth the money. You go around once, which takes about a half hour. The view from the top was breath taking, as you can see from the picture of Big Ben and Parliament.

Another girl from Nardin that goes to John Carroll with me was also in London visiting. So the three of us went around London on Monday. We went inside Westminster Abbey and it was absolutely beautiful. It was 9 pounds, but also definitely worth it. We spent like 3 hours in there. Anyone that has ever been important to Britain was either born, married, buried or has a memorial, including every king and queen that has ruled since its construction. Many poets and authors were also buried there, such as Geoffery Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales) and Shakespeare. I lit a candle for Aunt Karen in there.

Other than that, we have just been walking around and hanging out. Taylor leaves really early tomorrow morning. I have a midterm and a class tomorrow. But then I head out with my two friends (Steve Rock and Steve McLean, in the picture) for our spring break trip late Thursday afternoon. We head to Rome for 3 days, Florence for 2, Venice for 2, Cologne for a day, then Hamburg for 3 days before heading back to London. We are gone for almost 12 days but we only have to pay for 4 nights of hostels, thanks to our friends that are studying abroad in those places as well. It should be absolutely amazing, I'm really excited.



I will update as soon as I get back from spring break!

Hope everyone is doing well,

Torrey