Day 5: Florence to Rome

Our last day in Florence was just a travel day. We took a train from Florence to Rome. Before we left the hostel we got a group picture of everyone who stayed in the hostel the night before. The majority of us were leaving at the same time.

It worked out nicely cause they knew how to get to the train station so we just mindlessly followed them and didn't have to worry about finding our way on a map. Alex and Britta were also able to make a quick stop to buy some postcards.

The 5 of us girls with our awesome backpacks on! We truly backpacked through part of Europe!

Getting settled on the train. It was nice we were able to spread out cause the train was pretty empty.

The ride wasn't too long, but we all brought books to read and we had our iPods. Actually Sarah didn't bring her iPod so she used mine and she played games. It was hilarious watching her play cause she was so concentrated and into the game.
Everyone has to notice Alex's wavy hair. Oh my goodness she LOVES her hair like this! She has only ever had her hair straight but I french braided her hair one night so she could sleep in the morning and she absolutely LOVED her hair like this. Haha on the train ride she kept looking at herself in the window and saying 'I really like my hair like this.' So after that she had me braid her hair several times. Now that we are home she is trying to figure out how to do it to herself but she is having a hard time.
I also braided my own hair but I didn't like it. My hair is a little too short for it and it hurts my arms too much to braid it myself.

Britta loved the graffiti on the walls along the train tracks. She wanted a picture with it and it ended up looking really cool with her reflection in the window too.

The views of the Italian countryside was beautiful. So green and luscious.
Alex caught me trying to take a sneaky picture of them. Note Sarah intensely focused on her game on my phone.


Alex always seemed to catch me. I think it was because she wasn't sucked into a book like Michelle.

Britta contently reading her book. The book I got for Michelle for her birthday. Now Michelle has moved onto the second book.

When we got to the hostel we were all super hungry so I pulled out my cacahuetes (peanuts) to munch on before we went to dinner. I was apparently really excited to have them. Here is something you guys probably don't care about but I think is funny: Sarah will only eat the whole peanuts, she won't eat just the halves. Just like she will only eat the folded chips. Reminded me of my Grandma Warren with the folded chips, but of course grandma wouldn't waste all the unfolded chips, she just likes the folded ones more.


I think we were all a little tired and bored from traveling all day. We took some weird pics.

Oh and I need to mention that not all of these pictures are mine so I can not take credit for them. All 5 of us girls swapped pictures so we could have pictures of ourselves too. I mean everyone know that you never really take pictures of yourself so by swapping pictures we have evidence that we were in all these places. Brilliant idea, a?
In Rome we were meeting up with a few more people and this here is Kat she was one of the ones we hooked up with. We also met up with Cameron, Marcos and Marcos' friend Juan. So that brings our total to 9 people in Rome.
Random pic in the entrance of our hostel.
After we got settled into our hostel (we stayed at a hostel named Ivanhoe hostel. I booked this hostel also.) we walked around and found a place to eat dinner.

Beautiful streets of Rome!

Looking at a menu of a little street cafe.

We settled on a place that was fairly cheap. Sarah and Kat didn't really want to eat so they went and walked around on their own while we ate.
Then after dinner we all joined up and went to the Colosseum, which was only a 5 minute walk from our hostel! If I do say so myself I did a pretty good job picking out a hostel in a good location. The only bad thing about our hostel was it was always really loud cause the workers blasted music in the hallway, but other than that it was pretty good.


We took lots of pictures in front of the Colosseum, we were just so excited to be in Rome at the COLOSSEUM!!! We decided to do a European picture too. For those of you who don't know a European picture is a picture where we all have straight faces. We have noticed through our travels that for some reason when a lot of Europeans take photos they don't smile. I don't understand it but that is what they do.

They we all looked in different directions. I couldn't keep a straight face I was smirking a little.
So I have to give you a little background for this next picture. Through out our trip we decided we were like a family and we assigned each other positions in the family based on our personalities. Haha we are losers but we fit the positions perfectly. I will start with the "dad" of the family. That would be Alex cause she is a no fuss type of person who can get things done. I am the "mom," shocker right? Just cause I always have snacks for people and I am pretty neutral and like everyone to be happy. Britta is the "older sister" cause well that is what she is in real life and she is responsible like an older sister. Then we have the two little twins Sarah and Michelle. I don't really know why they are twins I think it is because they are on the same level intelligence wise. Ha. They both have a tendency to wonder off, not pay attention, and get lost. So that is our happy family and we are trying to pose as our roles in the family.

We didn't know what we were looking at but they were some ruins and they looked cool. Michelle, such an true Italian in her Italy sweatshirt.

In front of the Roman Forum.

We of course had to do a funny picture too.

We then headed over to the Trevi Fountain and of course of gelato along the way. SO yummy! Poor Sarah and her stupid gluten allergy had to have a cup instead of a cone.
The Trevi Fountain at night. I was the only one who threw in a coin. They all wanted to do it in the morning so they could get pictures of it. I figured I would just do it twice!
Later that night we were hanging out in the hostel before we went to bed and we were not making fun of, but simply observing the fact that Alex does the same "Alex pose" every picture she takes. This is my impression of the "Alex pose" it is pretty spot on if I do say so myself :) Hand on the hip with the leg popped up and her head tilted.

Day 4: Florence

Our last full day in Florence we made sure to get up and going so we could make the most of the day. We had pre-bought tickets to the Uffizi Museum so we went to an internet cafe to print out the ticket voucher. While we were printing out tickets we decided to check our emails since we had paid for the half hour of internet. So we sat and waited for each other to use the internet. We also discovered then that our tickets were for an hour later than we thought they were for.

After the internet cafe we went and wasted our time in the leather market! I love that little leather market, there are a ton of vendors selling purses, scarves, hat, jackets, jewelry and tons of other stuff. Alex and Sarah also went to find the Ferrari store so Alex could buy some souvenirs for her family. Then when it was time for the museum we headed over.

Michelle had been to Florence once before and had been in the Uffizi so she decided to sit outside and read instead of spending the money to see something she has seen before. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside of this museum either so there aren't any from inside the museum. This is the only picture I have and it is on the balcony near the cafeteria.

This is the only other picture we have that has something to do with the museum and it was just a poster thing outside of the museum.

The museum was pretty cool. Kind of just another museum, but I still liked it. I do have to say I liked the Prado more though. While we were in there we got super hungry so we had to go to the little cafeteria place and I bought myself peanuts. I didn't want to spend too much money and we didn't want to fill up since we were supposed to eat with Michelle after we got out of the museum.

We ended up finishing an hour before we told Michelle we were going to meet her so we tried to call her but her cell phone wasn't working so we went to the Ferrari store again. The first time Alex and Sarah went Alex didn't really have enough time to look around so we decided to go back so she could look again and buy something for her dad and brother. She ended up getting them each a nice t-shirt. While we were in there we took some pictures in front of the car that they had in there.

Oh I forgot to mention after we got out of the museum it was just barely sprinkling, but when we came out of the Ferrari it started to rain a little bit harder. We were all hungry too so I told the other girls to go ahead to McDonald's and I went and met Michelle. When I met Michelle she walked up with two dudes. I was like "uhh...hi?" They were kind of weird so told them we had to go meet our friends and we would meet them later and we peaced out. We obviously didn't go back to meet them and Michelle told me that she didn't get to read at all cause Italians just kept coming up and talking to her. Haha I thought that was funny. So we headed to McDonald's to meet the other girls. When we got there they weren't there so I called them and apparently they had stopped at the leather market real fast to look again. Britta ended up buying a purse for herself and Alex got some stuff for her grandmother. We ate at McDonald's and warmed up a bit and of course since we were bored we took some pics.

After we ate I had wanted to go back to the leather market and so did Britta, Michelle, and Alex even though it was raining. Sarah wasn't feeling very well so she headed back to the hostel and we went to the leather market. I was happy we did because although we got drenched I found a little blue coin purse that I love for myself! I think Michelle ended up getting some jewelry too. Everyone was trying to sell us umbrellas but we were already drenched there really was no point. When we got back to the hostel we had Sarah take a few pictures of our drenched selves.

These are our mad we are drenched faces.

Even when Alex took off her jacket she was still drenched. Haha it was some what hilarious.

We all got changed and hung up our clothes to dry. We actually ended up having to blow dry some of our stuff because it was so ridiculously wet.

That night a few more people came to the hostel and we all played cards, talked, drank some wine, ate some traditional Italian Easter cake (It was delicious), and the kid with the guitar, Drake, played a little and we sang some random songs. It was so much fun and an excellent way to spend a rainy Easter away from home. Oh yeah by the way I totally forgot this was Easter! Happy Easter!