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| Edinburgh Castle light post |
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| Villa Savoy |
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| Marie Antoinette's Cottage |
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| Burghley House Gardens |
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| Paris Catacombs |
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
5 best Sketches...
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Returning to USA... July 6th
Day 42...
Today I say Good Bye to Europe. For me it is a super sad day. I really do Love Europe, and all the amazing places I Have been. In all, I went to 6 different countries and saw some of the most amazing things I ever have in my life.
My plane left from Rome at 1035 am, so we had to catch the train this morning at 720, because it took an hour to get to the airport from the center of Rome, where we were. Fortunately I was ready to go the night before so I had no problems, but a few of the others I was worried about because they were cutting it close.
Fortunately once I got onto the plane, I was pretty much asleep. Mary and I ended up sitting right next to each other because her bag ended up being too heavy and too big for her to have two carry on’s, and I didn’t really have a carry on besides my tiny backpack. The first plane ride was a little over 9 hours, which wasn’t too bad because I was sleeping most of it. Newark, however, is not my favorite airport. First we had to get all of our luggage then go through customs, which took an hour, then we had to recheck our bags and go back through security. This plane boarded about 40 minutes after getting through everything, which for me was fine, but I think for everyone else it was cutting it close.
On the flight back to Utah I watched a movie and caught up on a few more blogs. I actually looked out the window for part of this flight and just kept thinking to myself, “its not as green” or “I don’t see as many incredible bildings here” or “is it possible to be Europe sick???”
When the plane finally landed I had been in the air for over 15 hours of my day, I was definitely over the whole plane thing and ready to get my bags and be done with the airport. However when I got to the baggage claim, everyones luggage had already come out, but Griffin’s and mine. Yes, I took Delta and again they did lose my bag.
~Home at Last~
Elyse
Italy Day 6... July 4th
Day 40...
Elyse
The Vatican. When I originally was super excited about going to the Vatican, i don’t think I realized it was another museum of some kind.
This morning we left for the Vatican early, around 8 since it opened around 9 and we knew we would have to wait in line. The line wasn’t too bad, although we had people non-stop asking us if we wanted to take tours, or skip the line or buy something or another so I think it made it feel like we were in line longer. When we finally got inside, I realized how big it actually is. (Even though I feel like I made it through the entire thing, I don’t think I did.) We walked through it as a group for the first little bit till I got lost. (I still can’t believe I got lost) Sadly we hadn’t even made it to the Sistine Chapel when I somehow wondered away from the group. So I ended up touring the entire Vatican alone, which wasn’t too bad because I did everything at my own pace. I walked through a room with tapestries, and one of them had eyes that actually seemed to follow you through the room where ever you looked, and another room had the ceiling painted as if it were actually carved. In both of these two rooms I probably sat 15 minutes hoping I would run into someone from my group, but no such luck.
The Sistine Chapel is amazing. There were so many people in it today that it was hard to move through. I somehow found a seat in the corner by the door so that I could just look up for a while and not worry about falling over. I know it is probably not the best thing, sense they did have signs on the door asking for no pictures, but I took a few pictures of things I actually recognized. But all in all, the entire thing is beautiful. This time I had no problem sitting inside there waiting to see if I ran into someone in my group because I just took that time as I could look around longer.
After about 6 hours of the Vatican (alone) I decided to go over to St. Peter’s Basilica. I sat in the square just looking around for quite some time because I was just so big, and it reminded me of how I had seen this exact place in movies and it really was no different. The line for going into the Basilica kept going back and forth from long to short, and I kept seeing people be turned away for their attire. Fortunately today I wore my longest skort as well as a more modest shirt, because they were sending people away for having too much skin showing. When I was inside, I took pictures of everything. The carvings and statues in here were I think the best I have seen. I walked by one of the workers and they asked if I came alone because I didn’t seem to be just looking at the building but also at the people, so when I told him that I came with a group but was separated, he told me to go into the prayer area and just pray I find them; so to please him I did, and somehow, about 15 minutes later, I found everyone in my group. I’m telling you… It was luck!!!
~Perso Italia~
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Italy Day 4... July 2nd
Day 38...
A series of Unfortunate Events!!!
Today was the train ride from Venice to Rome, and it definitely didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. The train we needed to catch for the cheapest price left at 920 am, however, there was 7 of us and for some reason that was way more difficult then it needed to be. I left for the train station alone, hoping I could get some of the tickets and the rest of us would just go straight over to the plat form. Well not everyone was at the station by 9 15 so we could actually get on the train, so we were cutting it extremely close. We ended up buying the tickets and basically running over to the plat form. Barely made the train due to it running late, otherwise we would have most definitely missed it. Our tickets were for standing, keep in mind we had all over our luggage today, so it was more like standing room for 14 of us. We finally got situated on the train between first class and standard, when one of the train conductor people told us we couldn’t sit in the first class walk way so we had to cram us all into the extremely small space in Coach. We all were pretty use to people climbing over or around us to get on and off the train by the third stop. This train was to just take us to Florence because the plan was to get off in Florence and spend a few hours in Florence then get back on the train and head to Rome. Part of the train ride it was get to know eachother better talks, and the rest everyone but myself fell asleep on the floor of the train while I caught up on these lovely blogs.
We got off the train in Florence, and I was pretty excited, because I was planning on finding me some amazing Italian Leather. Well this was the second major mishap of the day. The lockers were not available because today is a Saturday or something like that, but it automatically made for an extremely irritated group because we decided that we would take shifts, and then after that part of my group decided that they didn’t want to take shifts so they were just going to stay and wait, while a few of us made a quick one hour look so then we could all make the train. Unfortunately, at that point I really didn’t like this idea, but I went with it.
Mary, Dani and I walked down a few streets in Florence when we came to the realization that either everything was closed, or it was just to far away for us to just do in a quick hour, so we headed back to the train station where everyone else was waiting. The last train ride wasn’t near as bad as the first. At least we all had seats for this one, we were just extremely spread out between cars. This train reminded me more of the train on Harry Potter than any other train I have been on, the seats were arranged 6 per section throughout the entire thing. This train was much easier for me to sleep on then the one this morning.
When we arrived in Rome, the first thing we wanted to do was find our hotel. Fortunately we picked one close by so it would be easy to access the train station from. The first thing we run into was LDS Missionaries, and Maddie even knew one of them; it was like our group just found heaven or something. They were really nice guys and they tried to help us out but no luck. We knew what street it was off of and the general direction so we headed that way. Dreaming Roma is where Dani, Mary and I were to be staying and for some reason we passed it and didn’t even realize it. When we finally found it, we went up stairs to talk to the owner, and he had no idea who we were, spoke no English, and somehow informed us that he had no available rooms. Yep… Just my luck for today. We walked down to where the other half of the group was staying and I asked there hotel and they didn’t have any either. Fortunately the one next to them did.
After we resolved our whole hotel issue, everyone was starving. We ate at a place close to us and it really did have good pizza, and of course sense we are in Italy we had to continue our Gelato excursion and we walked down a few blocks and found an amazing gelato place!!! Everyone pampered themselves with at least 3 scoops.
~Unfortunate Events~
Elyse
Friday, July 1, 2011
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