im going to begin this post with a bit of an introduction. today, we went to the vatican museum. it was super exciting and i have a lot to recount for all of you. another very exciting thing happened today, however. i'm completely done booking my trips! after 349823904823 years ive finally finished booking every single weekend til its time for me to go back to new york. so this post will begin with a recount of my day with some pictures and then a detailed schedule of where I will be every weekend so yall can look forward to hearing about each thing.

lisa, collin, and i left corso trieste a little before noon and headed over to the vatican. yup, we left italy for a little while. anyhow, we got to the vatican in record time and decided to hit up i musei vaticani (the vatican museums) because we figured that would probably be the first of all the things to close. It was just as i remember it- SO much art and filled with so many people that you can barely enjoy yourself. The first statue we encountered that really struck my fancy was the Laocoön which, according to collin, is pretty much THE statue that everyone tries to copy. this is the best i could do when trying to capture it though there are so many k people's heads in it.


we pretty much tried to speed through the vatican museum since it was so crowded and there were like 324233429842390482 people all smelly, sweaty, and mostly American. this is the ceiling of the map room. to be honest, one of the things that impressed me most about the vatican museum is that there are no boring areas. every single wall and ceiling is completely covered in ornate art, whether it be statues, wall carvings, or frescoes.


another very famous fresco is Raphael's School of Athens. my handy little guide book that i spent hours choosing in barnes and noble was quite useful today because it served as out tour guide throughout the vatican museum so that we didn't have to pay for one. anyhow, here's the school of athens.


within the vatican museum there are also many pieces of art that make you think, hm someone mustve really wanted to give something but couldn't quite figure out what to give. well here's the perfect example. randomly, we come across this statue of two swans that were deemed the mute swans of peace.


after a few hours, we finally finish the museum and then head out to grab a bite to eat. afterwards, we walked over to Piazza San Pietro to take pictures of the square and basilica. this is me and collin in front of the basilica


we decide to head over to the tombs of the popes before actually entering the basilica. off to the side, theres this random entrance to a room under the basilica where you can see where all the popes are buried, including saint peter. when you first enter the tombs, theres a statue of St. Peter. I don't know why but I decided to take a picture with this dude.


of course, I was most excited by seeing the grave of PJP2 but actually getting to see the burial site of st. peter was pretty amazing. this is both the covering of PJP2's grave as well as the lil room he occupies.



PJP2 has pretty prime realty down there cause he has a pretty, lit up lil room quite close to St. Peter himself. Here are some pictures of St. Peter's Tomb. this is the area that is directly underneath the high altar and it didn't use to be open to the public.



After finishing up in the tombs, the three of us decided to hit up the Basilica. Of course, the first thing you admire when you walk into the basilica is the pieta. a beautiful statue, this area of the church is ALWAYS crowded! well anyhow, here's a picture to remind everyone what this magnificent statue is.


another very popular picture is that of the high altar of St. Peter. Here's me and lisa with the altar.


I, luckily, got to experience a lot of things today while at the vatican. First, there was confession. I didn't confess simply cause my last experience was a lil painful and awkward but collin did. i also got to experience mass in the church. last time i was there, I didn't get to experience this. Though Benny wasn't presiding during this mass, it was kind of cool to experience a Mass that was being celebrated on the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica. The mass was in Italian, but surprisingly I could still understand the main idea of the readings. anyhow, here's a picture of the window above the altar, all lit up during sunset.


so after we finished there, i sent some postcards to my sister and mom since the vatican's postage is different from the rest of the world. we then headed back home since we were all so so tired from being such tourists for the last 4 or so days. at this point, we finished booking everything! it's so nice to have all this stuff just be finished and done with and not have to worry about any of it anymore. I'll end this post with a detailed calendar of what the next 3 months are looking like for me.

oct 5- ITALIAN COOKING CLASS woot. im learning how to cook! our program provides two separate cooking classes and mine is this coming thursday. i can't wait to learn how to cook real food.

oct 6-8 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN forgive me for repeating to those of you who have already read my past entries, but this will be my second time in stockholm this year and i can't be more excited!

oct 13-15 BARCELONA, SPAIN finally going to spain! i wish i could go visit jess in madrid, but unfortunately i only have enough time to make it to barcelona. so so excited for sangria and paella. (battaline is coming on this one which makes it doubly exciting!)

oct 20-22 NAPOLI, THE AMALFI COAST, AND POMPEII last time i came to italy, we skipped everything south of rome. lame, i know, but now is my chance to experience all of that stuff. we already took care of sorrento and capri last weekend, but now its time do get the rest done.

oct 27-29 BRUSSELS AND BRUGES, BELGIUM brussels! though i never knew much about it brussels has always been one of those places i wanted to go to. and now i finally am! also props to my sister, the big AC, for recommending Bruges, we're going to be in brussels for almost 3 full days which i think is more than enough to see everything we need to in brussels, so we will be heading out to bruges for one of the days to make our fall break a bit more productive.

oct 29-Nov 2 GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND woohoo, scotland! i've never been and it's definitely one of the places i've wanted to hit up. unfortunately, i had never made it before since there were so many other places for us to go, but now i can finally do it and not worry about how much it costs.

nov 2-5 PARIS, FRANCE can't wait to see marissa! i know paris wasn't necessarily one of my top places to visit, but collin has never been there and i would love to go again as well as share a bed with marissa. baby.

nov 10-12 BUDAPEST, HUNGARY so i know i was supposed to go in october in order to meet up with my aunt and uncle, but unfortunately it didn't quite work out. october became completely booked really quickly so we pushed budapest back to november. so so excited to goooo.

nov 16-19 PARIS, FRANCE and AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS so i know i didn't really wanna go to paris as badly as it may seem, but im heading out to paris for a day and then out to amsterdam with my jumbos <3. so marissa decided to take the train from paris to amsterdam since its cheap and quick and she didn't want to travel by herself. it worked out with my schedule and wasn't really all that expensive so i decided to fly out to paris, stay for a day, take the train with Marissa to amsterdam, spend the weekend with marissa and jessie, take the train back to paris, and then fly back to roma sunday night. it's gonna be a tiring weekend but it'll be so so worth it.

nov 24-26 DUBLIN, IRELAND my birthday! i get to spend my birthday in dublin! isn't that kinda crazy? i definitely think it is. my cousins, A France and K Rod, are going to be in dublin that weekend so i figured i would coordinate my trip with them. i know i won't get to see them too too much but hey, it'll make up for the fact that i have to miss thanksgiving in new york like i like to enjoy every year. (this trip will be a wonderful mix of me, collin, battaline, and my lovely roommate superior jessie.)

dec 1-3 WARSAW, POLAND that's right, Poland. i know, also kinda random but you know who's from poland? PJP2. hehe yeah i know i'm a huge loser. anyhow, poland was a country i also wanted to hit up while i was on this side of the pond and it ended up i had a free weekend in december that coincided with cheap flights to poland. our hostel is called oki doki lol. (battaline's coming on this one too!)

dec 6-9 PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC woot prague. it's finally happening. for a pretty long while i was positive that prague wouldn't happen because flights were so so expensive and the ones i could get were at awful times and whatnot. anyhow, after a bit of maneuvering and a whole LOT of research, collin and i found flights for under 70 euro so that we could spend 3 days in prague.

dec 14-16 ROMA, ITALIA yup, i decided to spend my last weekend in rome to really be able to enjoy the city for my last weekend before heading back to new york.

dec 20- ISLE OF STATS, NEW YORK that's right, december 20 i will be back on staten island and back in action. hopefully start working december 21?

ok that's all i got for all of yall for now. hope you enjoyed this one <3

ok i know it's been a few days since i've updated but for the first few days, nothing really happened and then a whole lot happened and i just got to be ridiculously busy and barely even got to use my computer. i shall recap it for yall.

so my friend alex from tufts has fall break at oxford right now so she decided to head down to italy for the break to visit me as well as see her friend ellen. she flew into rome on wednesday so i went to meet her at termini station. after great confusion, she got to rome safely and we got to hang out. i went to the ATM to get some money and it says that my card isn't international. seriously, bank of america needs to slow its roll before i harpoon them with my fork, king triton style. so basically, before i left i physically went to the bank and explained that i will be living abroad for 4 months and need my card to work. the teller was totally like oh yeah thats fine no problem, it should be fine. wednesday rolls around and i need to take out money and it says your card is not international. for some reason i didn't flip out, but i immediately emailed my sister (who is the best by the way) to take care of it since it would cost me almost 40 cents a minute to talk to these people for probly a few hours. so she took care of it by the end of the day which was so so nice and now i have a functioning ATM card. whew.

so back to the point of the story. alex pryor is here! though she is not physically with me at the moment, she flew into rome on wednesday morning and then she and i spent wednesday and thursday together. her friend ellen got here last night and so i took her to the bus stop where she headed out to the train station to meet ellen and check into their hostel. if i had space, i would totally take them both in so that they wouldn't have to pay for a crappy hostel, but unfortunately i have one small couch and hardwood floors which i assume would not at all be comfortable. well anyway, so alex got in wednesday afternoon to downtown rome and we came back to my apartment so she could get settled in and shower and everything after her long long day. after a few hours, we hopped on a bus downtown to start the sightseeing. im kinda proud of myself for knowing where everything is in relation to my house as well as to each other. anyway, we started at Piazza Barberini where we walked to Piazza di Spagna to see the spanish steps. apparently, other tourists dont understand that when you ask someone to take a picture of you in front of a monument it means to get you AND the monument in the picture. anyway, this is the picture we got of us and the spanish steps.


so then we walked down via condotti to see my favorite stores (dior, gucci, prada, YSL, ferragamo, etc.) and then headed towards the Trevi Fountain. I didn't know i knew the historic area so well, we didn't get lost at all and i generally knew where to go. granted, there are signs everywhere but i felt really familiar with the area and was able to predict where to turn and things. anyhow, i didnt know it at the time but it ends up that the trevi fountain is a fountain that was built at the end of one of the canals that brings water into Rome to commemorate the fact that its the end of the canal i guess. eh whatevs. here's a picture of me and alex at Trevi.


we kept walking out towards the tiber river and hit the pantheon. i didn't know it was open in the evening, but it was! for some reason, half it was closed off (for cleaning im guessing) and so we went in to see the hole in the ceiling and a bit of art and then headed back out to get a picture with it. this is probly like the best picture we got all night of us AND a monument.


we continued on our journey to piazza navona where i showed her where kevin lives as well as try to describe the fountain a bit. maybe after hearing it so many times, it's started to stick in my mind but i'm actually not a bad tour guide and know a lot about the main tourist stuff. after two attempts, here is the best picture we got of us and at least part of the fountain.


so it was pretty late at this point and we decided to stop for dinner. i wanted her to have some good italian food since she says Oxford's food isn't so great so we went to the restaurant that kevin recommended. the place was gorgeous since it was mostly outside tables and right on piazza navona on a perfect night to sit outside and the food was quite good but not as good as i expected it to be. anyway, here's a romantic picture of the two of us after finishing our delicious meal.


after dinner we walked down towards piazza venezia where i showed her the wedding cake (monument to vittorio emanuelle II) and then on the colosseum. after reaching the colosseum we decided that we were both really tired and headed home to have ice cream and relax a bit. thursday morning, alex headed to the IES center to use the wireless internet and work on her paper and then i had 2 classes which were both so ridiculously painful. i came back after school to get her and then we headed down towards the spanish steps again to go shopping. for the majority of the day, we were a complete failure but at the very end i bought a pair of bermudas and then we both got black ballet flats that only cost 14,90. awesome. so we came back and as i was sitting down i all of a sudden got completely hit by exhaustion. i felt really bad cause alex thought i was mad at her but it really was just that i got so tired after doing so much walking and stuff for 2 straight days that i needed to sit home and rest if i wanted to be ok to do anything at all this weekend as well as go to sweden next weekend.

anyhow, so last night i just hung out with lisa and talked about life and the like and then we both got up early (a relative term) and went to buy books. then i headed back to do a bit of grocery shopping to prepare for our american dinner tonight (hamburgers and french fries with chocolate cake for dessert) and then every1 converged at my apartment so we could head out for the afternoon. around noon we decided to do pretty much the same exact thing i had just done with alex plus some. so we headed down to the spanish steps, via condotti, trevi fountain, wedding cake...you know the yoozh. this is where things changed a bit. we decided to walk up into the wedding cake since its open and free during the day for tourists. so we walked up and around and out the back where it led us to campidoglio. weird, huh? well we went out and sat in front of the senate building for a while to rest and take in some sun and then set out to find the mouth of truth. here's the picture of campidoglio from where were sitting.


this is the fake statue of marcus aurelius that sits in the middle of the square.


this is the view of the forum from the back of campidoglio.


so we walked out the back of the piazza and looked for the mouth of truth. for those of you who don't know, la bocca della verità was in roman holiday (as well as only you). the legend is if you stick your hand in and you tell a lie or have a guilty conscience, it will bite down and take your hand. well anyhow, in both movies the characters stick their hand in and then pull their arm out with the hand tucked into the shirt sleeve to make it look like their hands have been bitten off. so here's the picture of me shoving my hand into this mouth of truth.


after walking some more down south, we hit circus maximus which is right off the palatine hill. this is a huge field where they used to host both foot and chariot races for all to see. it sits next to the palatine hill and, actually, the rich people who lived on the palatine hill could watch the festivities from their windows. here's me and lisa at the circus maximus.


here's collin running laps at the circus.


these are the buildings that remain on top of the palatine hill. legend says that romulus settled on top of the palatine hill and remus settled on top of the aventine hill. since romulus won and killed remus, the city was built around the palatine and was called rome. and as collin pointed out, not reme.


so we headed south even more looking for le terme de caracalla. these are the ancient baths that were built under the comission of marcus aurellius and are still in pretty good shape now. the outer structure is still intact and they actually preserved a pretty good number of the mosaics and things. this is me and lisa with the outer structures that you first encounter when you enter the complex. this isn't quite the main building yet, but it's what surrounds the entrance to the complex.


here is me and collin inside the baths. i believe this room is the frigidarium which was used for cold bathing.


these are the mosaics that hung on the walls in this bath. due to severe damage, the mosaics are no longer in one piece, but they were able to save a few pieces to keep on display.


so after thinking about our french fries and hamburgers some more we headed back up north on the other side of town to catch a glimpse of the colosseum by day. this is the only picture we got of the colosseum (collin with her fob pose) since both lisa and i have already been there.


we also encountered the arch of constantine while walking around the colosseum. here's the three of us with the arch. special thanks to collin's k people for taking our picture.


after the colosseum we were pretty much completely beat and decided to head back to corso trieste to have our american night. here's a picture of collin with all of our ingredients for this fine evening's dinner. consisted of: hambugers, french fries, lots of ketchup, cheese, really cheap beer, cake batter in a bag, etc.


after unsuccessfully cooking italian patatine (fried potatoes) but enjoying them anyway with cheese and hamburgers, we attempted to make a cake. it would be useful if you didnt feel a cold draft coming out of the oven when you were trying to heat it. anyway, we ended up making our cake successfully and making this like pastry creme thing instead of frosting and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. we watched anchorman and decided to call it a night.

calling it a night was a good idea cause tomorrow is...THE VATICAN. haha yes, i will in fact be heading out to the vatican tomorrow. we're gonna hit up the museums, st paul's basilica, and the sistine chapel. i've already been but my mom wants me to go see the body of PJP2 (pope john paul II) so we're gonna try to make that happen. my trip to italy would also be complete if i got to see benny. hope that is in the agenda somewhere in the next 3 months!

another addition to the calendar of booked trips...

nov 15-19 PARIS, FRANCE and AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS so marissa and jess and i were trying to plan to meet somewhere from nov 17-19. marissa decided she wanted to take the train from paris to amsterdam since its only about 4 hours away but didn't want to travel by herself. for me to fly to amsterdam is ridiculously expensive so i agreed to fly to paris on wednesday night then spend the day in paris while marissa has class and then well head out to amsterdam on thursday afternoon. we would get into the amsterdam train station around 8 pm and jess will get into the airport around 845 so im guessing marissa and i will just hang for a bit, check into the hostel, walk around and then have dinner when jess gets into town. i'm super excited to get to see them again and am a lil sad that d stein wont be there but its all good, we'll be living together so so soon. so marissa and i will stay in the netherlands until sunday morning when we'll take the train back to paris cause marissa's parents are coming in for the week. i think what i'm going to end up doing is stay in paris sunday night to see marissa's family and then head back to rome early monday morning to get back in time for class.

once i book the last two weekends i'll post the full calendar of my semester for everyone to see.

it's a lil after 8 pm now and i got home for capri probly about an hour ago. how can i sum up this weekend? absolutely amazing.
so we left friday morning from rome and headed to naples by train. the train ride was kinda long but it was kinda nice cause we got to nap. here's a picture of me and collin on the train. i wanted a nice picture documenting our travelling but she messed it up as she was (at the time) eating the stupid crackers she bought at tuo di the day before.


so we get to naples and walk around for a lil bit trying to figure out which train to take to sorrento. we finally find it and realize the train ride takes about an hour and a half as it goes from naples, around mount vesuvius, then to sorrento. we finally make it to sorrento, find our bus, and head all the way up the hill to find our camp site. we originally thought we would have a room and a tent but it ended up we had two cabins to share between the 5 of us. here's a picture of our cabin (cabin O). it actually was kinda nice and had clean sheets and all but for some reason when we got back from capri it was damp inside. i bet we were supposed to leave the window open or something. collin termed the ambiance as that of a "damp sandwich."


so we spent friday evening walking around sorrento. we first headed down the hill to explore a bit to see what we could find. we stumbled upon this beautiful church on the way down. it was a bit unsuspecting but once we went inside it was beautiful. unfortunately pictures are not allowed inside the church but here's the picture of the front it. completely unassuming, no?


after walking around in the church for a bit, we headed into town and grabbed some dinner at an outdoor cafe. the place was real cute and the food was good and cheap. i enjoyed spaghetti alle cozze (spaghetti with mussels) as everyone else enjoyed pizza, gnocchi, and spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clams). after dinner, we grabbed some gelato at one of the local places and kept walking around to see what we could find. there was so much shopping it was ridiculous! and so much english spoken, too. i guess i never realized what a tourist town sorrento actually is. after a bit of wandering, we stumbled upon the public gardens of sorrento. it's a lookout point where you can see the bay of naples, naples, mount vesuvius, and capo di sorrento (the top of the hill). here's the best picture (of about 3409823490238409328 that we took) of us with capo di sorrento all lit up.


shortly after our stroll through town, we decided to head back to the camping site since we were planning on leaving for capri around 630. we headed up and went to bed early so we could be up by 6 and out by 630. on friday, we didn't pay for the buses because there was no one checking, but since we were the only JO's on the bus at 630 the bus driver asked for our tickets and we didn't have any. so we got off the bus and decided to walk down the hill instead. it was only about a 15-20 minute walk and it was downhill so it really wasn't a big deal at all. this is a picture of me and collin at the lookout point about halfway down the hill.


we run down to marina piccola to find that the ferry is leaving in 10 minutes. we buy tickets and run out to the boat with ample time. the ferry ride over was quite short but pretty and the breeze felt really nice. we started out inside but then decided it would be so much nicer inside. here's a picture of battaline, me, and collin chillin in the ferry before deciding to enjoy the outside deck.


so we get to capri and first get a bit of food and then buy tickets to the blue grotto. we get on the boat to the blue grotto and it ends up just being the 5 of us and this one other american dude travelling in capri for the weekend. this is a view of the seaside town from this boat.


and here's a picture of the 5 of us on the boat on the way to the blue grotto.


la grotta azzura, as they call it, is this lil grotto that's actually within the rocks on the island of capri. the hole to get in is so small that the people sitting in the rowboat have to lie along the bottom and the boat driver (term?) lies one level above, pulling on a chain to get in. its amazing...you get inside and its a small grotto. the water is so blue and gorgeous. and the acoustics of the place are amazing! our boat driver sang for us a bit and it sounded amazing even though he doesn't have much of a singing voice. here's the best picture of the grotto i could get. it's just amazing how this lil opening in the rocks could create this natural affect on the water to make it light up so bright blue!


so we headed back to capri and couldn't decide what to do. it came down to us wanting to lie down on the beach all day. so we headed over to the closest beach (2 minute walk) and started walking. after a few minutes we realized that there's no sand on the beaches in capri! i guess the beaches aren't that old cause in some parts the stones are HUGE and in others, theyre smaller. it was amazing to me cause i had never seen a beach like that and i have to say it is quite painful to walk on those stones without shoes. we ended up spending most of the day at this beach since the weather was so beautiful and the water felt nice. i, personally, chose not to swim cause i had to be wearing my bathing suit for the rest of the day and the water was ridiculously salty. but i did wet my feet (belmar style). here's a picture of the rocks that made up the shore.


as the sun got stronger, and we got hotter, we headed back into the town. we hit up a "snack bar" as they call it for a delicious caprisian lunch. sara got risotto al pescatore with all kinds of amazing seafood. lisa got a caprese sandwich (fresh mozarella, sweet tomatoes, olive oil, basil, and deliciousness) and i got a caprese sandwich with some fresh grilled tuna. i can't even begin to tell you how amazing the seafood is down there and how cheap it is too! i also had a lemon soda which tasted like non alcoholic mike's hard lemonade and it was also delish. apparently capri and sorrento are known for their lemon products (something i didn't know before) so of course i had to try it all. shortly after, we hopped on a bus to anacapri, the historic center on the top of the island. anacapri is a cute lil place that really reminds me of the greek islands. all the buildings are painted white and there are tons of lil shops and things for tourists to walk around and visit. we stumbled upon this chairlift up to mount solaro. its literally like chairs attached to cables that just constantly go up and down the hill. it's kinda cool. well anyway, mount solaro dates back pretty far and there some ruins and statues and things up there. by far one of the most beautiful and breathtaking things ive ever done in my life. from the top of the mountain, if you look down at the marina to see the boats, this is what you see. cute, huh?


here's a picture with me and the view of capri from the mountain.


now on the other side of the mountain, you see a different side of capri. this is me, lisa, and sara with collin standing on the chair to take the picture in order to get the background.


one of the most famous statues on the top of the mountain is of this guy hanging off the building. it looks like he's saying what up or flipping someone off. this is collin showing him how its done.


on top of the mountain there are a bunch of tables and lounge chairs where you can sit and enjoy the view. the weather was so beautiful but we were totally all up in the sun's grill.


we met some other americans who agreed to take a picture of the 5 of us with some kind of view. here it is.


so on the way down i figured would be better to take pictures of the panorama considering the way its positioned. here's a picture of a random k person (one of collin's people that happen to be one of 92383948329 in sorrento and capri this weekend) on his chair and the beautiful view of the countryside from the chair.


there's collin on the chairlift doing her fob pose.


by the way, this chair lift isn't too high from the ground (20 ft maybe?) but it goes down this really steep hill and at some point slowed down which was kinda shady. good thing none of us were afraid of heights. though the entire time i was kinda wishing i could take babiak with me to see how he would react. anyhow, we get back down to anacapri and realize what time it is and try to run down to the ferry terminal to catch the last ferry. we get on a bus that only takes us halfway down the hill which is uber lame but then hop on the funicolare. it kinda reminded me of the tram in santorini that anna and i RAN to catch in order to make the last hydrofoil back to the boat. here's me, sara, and gretchen on the funicolare.


we catch the ferry back to sorrento with great ease and it all went pretty smoothly. once on sorrento, we enjoy a nice meal and the lovely evening. of course we managed to make the restaurant hate us and pretty much ban us for life but you know whatever. anyhow, here's sara walking through the beautifully lit alleyways of sorrento.


this morning me, battaline, and collin headed to one of the limoncello stores to buy these like lemon chocolate almond candy things we tried the day before. they're so amazing. i know lemon chocolate almond doesn't sound too appetizing, but i have to tell you these candies are amazing. the guy was this old italian man who kept singing and telling us how italian men love women and so we asked him to take a picture. the lady taking it was kinda stupid so its blurry but nonetheless, its a funny picture.


after buying our long awaited candy, we decided to go back to the lookout point to see the bay of naples by day. here's what the country side looks like during the day.


also, down in the bay of naples, they have restaurants, beaches, and bathing platforms. the shore of sorrento only gets a strong enough sun for sunbathing between the months of april and october. they have these platforms that you pay for to head out and grab a chair and take in the sun. when october rolls around, they dismantle the platforms and put them away. theyre actually really cool since the water is so clear and all. these are the bathing platforms.


and here is a picture demonstrating exactly how clear the water is.



this is mount vesuvius. its kinda weird cause i heard a tour guide saying that when its even a lil cloudy, mount vesuvius gets completely lost in the haze and can't be seen at all. also, if it ever erupted where i was standing would be the perfect place to watch from.


so then we decided to just head out since sorrento really isn't close AT ALL to rome. and by not close i mean it takes like 6 hours to get there. we luckily caught the train right away and headed out to naples where we thought we barely made the train but of course the train left 30 minutes late. here's me and collin after not having showered for 2 days and sweated lots during the heat. yum.



ok well that's it for now. next weekend i think we're just doing a day trip to tivoli to see hadrian's villa and then probably trastevere and the vatican on sunday. but after that more adventure to come.

ps one more addition to my lil traveling calendar
Nov 10-12 BUDAPEST, HUNGARY barbie goes to hungary! no i'm not barbie and i'm sure yall can figure that out from the pictures. actually there's this low cost carrier called wizz air that has pink and purple planes which is what i booked with to head to budapest. collin and i found a decent flight and a good hostel so we decided...budapest it is! it's pretty off beat but i bet itll be amazing and my aunt and uncle will have just been there and can sort of guide us. yay!