My European Travels: When in Rome....

With studying abroad I have seen places that normally are just in books. Over the time of Spring Break I got to visit such places. So I am going to start where I left off last time. Sadly I am going to just talk about my last day in Venice. The last day the entire group was together we went to an art museum which took about an hour and a half to get to. Why I really wanted to talk about this is because Jan ended up getting us lost so instead of a 30 minute walk, we got the long one. Once we were done with that, we were free to go and had to be back in Olomouc by class time on the next Monday. So what we did was went back to our room and grabbed our stuff and check into our hostel. We wanted to stay in Venice for one more day but the hostel that the school had booked was full for that night so we booked one. What was special about this is that it was a camping hostel. They were having a special deal so we even got to upgrade to cabins. It was probably the coolest place I had stayed in up till that point. The campground was sectioned out between the tents, cabins, bathrooms and so on. Sadly they did not have a pool. During the day we were on a boat ride which was an amazing thing. We learned that they have to say ahoj when they are coming up to an intersection that way they know who was coming up on the intersection.

Me on one of the many bridges in Venice.

Loving all the water!

The next day we were off to Rome. This was also where we got the opportunity to camp in Italy. However, this location was so much more than the other. There was a pool that was close since it was too cold, a restaurant, and a bar all on the same property. What was great about this is that we really did not have to leave in order to get food or a couple drinks if we wanted to. Our first day there we got to see the Vatican which is a lot more than I ever expected. We ended up being the last tour to go through and got to see the chapel! It was so insane to be in the chapel because we weren’t allowed to take photos so it wasn’t a tourist spot. The entire time we were in there I just wanted to lay down on the floor and stare at the ceiling and that is truly what I would do for hours on end just to appreciate the room. What I thought was really interesting is how much they have there. The Vatican has buildings upon buildings fill with statues and paintings that was found there. That was pretty much what we did that day. The next day we got to see the Colosseum and it was interesting. Usually when you go to a place that you know people were murdered there then it is like an creepy feeling, like the one I got in the concentration camps, yet for some reason I did not feel that way. I think a portion of this is because the time difference. For us in 2016 it is really hard to even imagine people fighting while others placed bets on who would survive. What really surprised me about Rome is how dirty it is. Everywhere that was not a tourist location had trash cans that were filled to the rim and even then had so much trash around them that you couldn’t walk around it for a good 2 feet. Overall, I would say that Spring Break was a huge success and sadly I am not going to talk about the rest of it just because it would not be as exciting.