España... te amo siempe!

I had an amazing 2 days and 3 nights in Spain after my time in Italy. I loved every minute of it. I felt at home and completely happy.  In 2006 I had lived in Spain for six months while studying at the Universidad de Malaga. I decided to take a quick trip back to Malaga so I could enjoy the beach, speak Spanish, and return a place I used to call home. I was lucky enough to stay with a great couch surfing host, Francis, and his adorably sweet dog Rooney. Amazingly enough, Francis was able to show me something I had never seen of Malaga each day I was there even though I had lived there before.

On my first night there he took me to an amazing restaurant on the beach where I ate the most delicious fish I have ever eaten. We walked on the boardwalk, people watched, and ended up relaxing on the beach most of my first evening. The next day he took me to a beautiful local beach I had never been to in my six months living in Malaga in 2006. Later that night Nikki arrived to Malaga and joined me for the rest of my time in Spain. We went out that night Spanish style- tapas, tinto de verano (a cold red wine drink with lemon lime soda-so tasty), and a long night out enjoying 1 euro chupitos (shots) and great conversation.  The next day Nikki and I made Francis an American breakfast of pancakes and eggs before enjoying another lovely day at the beach. On my last night in Spain, Francis taught us how to make Spanish tortilla (it is similar to an omlette but with all sorts of goodies like potatoes, peppers, and onions). Yum! We drank beer and Rioja and watched the Formula 1 Races all night. I had so much fun with Francis and Rooney- they really made my time in Spain exactly what I wanted- lots of Spanish and lots of relaxation! I was so surprised how quickly my love for Spain became a part of me again. Right when I stepped outside of the airport I felt happy and like I was where I was supposed to be. I am so grateful I had the chance to return and enjoy two very perfect days in Malaga!

Malaga

Francis and Rooney

before a night out of tapas and chupitos

Calle Larrios- famous street in Malga

Old stomping grounds! Used to come here all the time when I lived here :)

Aparently G.W. Bush is on the same dictator list as Hugo Chaves! Yikes- sorry Bush supporters! They are names of chupitos at Urbano

night out in Malaga

American Breakfast!

So pretty

Beach day

teaching me how to cook the tortilla española

Traditional Spanish Dinner for my last night in Spain :)

Ciao Italia- a month in Italy comes to a close....

Venice

I only spent two days in Venice, with one day of touring the city so I will post some pictures but my experience there wasn't as in depth as it has been in other places. The best thing to do in Venice is to just get lost in the city walking down the small and unorganized streets. Seeing a city on water is quite interesting. It is very pretty and great place to spend a day at. Venice is a very expensive city though so I stayed in a trailer park outside of the city while I was there!.... it was awesome! I loved it- it was quite the nice trailer park. There was a pool and Nikki and I were able to get a mobile room to ourselves- amazing!

Venice- the typical way to get from point A from point B

Alley ways of water

Day in Venice

Walking over a pretty bridge

Trinket shops everywhere

Tiny little alleys- hope you are skinny!

Pretty bridges and shops everywhere

Tuscany

After a quick trip to Venice I made my way to Tuscany. This is an area I was very excited to spend time in.  I had two full weeks in this region, and while I would have loved to spend more time in the countryside, I can still confirm that it is a beautiful area of Italy and definitely worth a visit. I spent time in Florence, Follonica, Siena and Pisa while I was in Tuscany. I couch surfed the whole way and met a lot of new people.  Here is a small bit on each area I spent time in!

Florence- Round 1
When Nikki and I arrived to Florence we made our way to our first couch surf stop in an amazing location- right in the center of the lovely city. We were staying with a couch surfer named Giuseppe. He is a crazy dude with lots of energy and tons of friends. It seemed as if he knew everyone in Florence. He and his friends were nice enough to show both Nikki and I around on our first two days in city. We were taken to see the Duomo, the center, the old bridge, and quite a few old churches and piazzas. I apologies in advance; you won’t get too many details on museums or monuments in the remainder of my blog as I am the worst tourist ever and I don’t enter into most of these. Opps! Don’t get me wrong, I think they are all beautiful and valuable and if I were on a vacation I would definitely enjoy them in more depth but when you travel for an extended period of time you can only enter to so many churches and monuments before they start to blend a small bit. Throughout the end of this trip, I have been much more involved in meeting the people living in the area and getting to know what I can of their culture. That is part of why couch surfing has been so great. It is a way to meet the locals and get to know what it is really like to live in these countries I am traveling too. 

El Duomo- view from Giuseppe's balcony

Great market in Florence

Duomo during the day

Gelato Festival!

River in Florence

Out at aperetif with our couch surfing host and his friends

Beautiful Florence

Great city

Follonica- a quite beach town in Tuscany
After a few days in Tuscany I made my way to a beach town called Follonica. It was a very quiet and relaxing town.  I was able to go for a run in the morning and enjoy a late afternoon tea for the two days I was there.  I cooked Italian dinner with my host each night and I was able to learn a little bit more about “the art of cooking pasta.” They are very serious about how to cook pasta and what sauce or meat each type of pasta should be paired with. My host, Alessio, explained to me that the Italian food in America is just not Italian food at all! Haha! I was able to see more of the country side in Follonica which was really nice. It reminded me a bit of the Midwest and the beautiful country sides that I used to see every day in Iowa. I took a really nice hike to a very beautiful beach and enjoyed an amazing day of sun! 

View from the Balcony in Follonica

the country side

Pretty hike to the beach

Follonica

Day at the beach

Sienna & Pisa- The Leaning Tower visit 
I was excited to be back in a city with a little more action after a couple of quite days at the beach. In Sienna I surfed with Sercan- a really cool dude from Turkey! Nikki was lucky enough to find Sercan and we enjoyed three days together in Siena. We did a lot of cooking and hanging out for our time with Sercan. Siena is pretty small and we were able to see it in a day. Nikki and I cooked all sorts of American food for Sercan . He was happy with every meal so looks like we haven’t forgotten everything while we have been away. We took a day trip to Pisa just to take funny pictures with the Leaning Tower. We got some pretty good shots since Nikki made us stay there for two hours trying all sorts of funny things- it was actually pretty funny and we laughed a lot- mostly at other people doing the same thing as us. While we may reunite in Spain for a day at the beach,  Sienna was the last town I travelled in Nikki’s company. So now my backpacking crew is down to one and I am finishing my trip the way I started- solo. While I the company I have had throughout this experience has been beyond incredible, I am excited to finish this trip on my own and test out how my traveling skills have improved since day one.

Siena

Nikki and I- enjoy the view of all of Siena

Duomo in Siena- doumos everywhere!

Sercan- our couch surf host

yup- we shared that little thing!

Pisa!

So funny! Tons of people doing funny things to take pictures with the Leaning Tower.

Now that is one big hug!

Florence- Round 2
I ended my time in Italy in Florence. I spent a few days just walking around the city, trying to get to know the area as best as possible, and finding my own little special spots. For example, I found a lovely library where I was able to spend an entire raining day reading on the covered roof with a view of the Duomo. I couch surfed with two different hosts- Guiseppe again, and Ilya (a couch surfing king- he has hosted 90 people in a year!). I even was so lucky to meet an American, Zac, at an Irish bar one raining day who is living in Italy with his mother for a month. They took me in for two nights and gave me a home! I spent two fun days with them- they were so kind, helpful, and beyond generous! I could never thank them enough and once again I made friends who will forever have a home with me where I am. This was a wonderful end to my time in Italy. A month flew by quickly but I was lucky to see so much. Ciao Italy-Grazie for the amazing pizza, pasta, and 3 extra kilos that came with it! ;)

Ilja- my very Italian couch surfing host- cooking an Italian Dinner!

With the locals- by the end of this month I can officially understand Italian- we communicated by them speaking Italian and me speaking Spanish- how fun!

Yum!

tiny cars everywhere

Out for aperetif with couch surfers

Zac and Michele- American family who adopted me in Florence!

the famous David- Ciao Italia!

Ciao Bella- a month in Italy begins

*there are two cities in this post so don't miss the second half after Rome!

Rome

I spent 6 days in Rome with Nikki and Andrew and stayed in 4 different places all around the city! While this may sound a bit tiresome to most (I must admit it was) I was able to stay all over the city and get to know it very well. Now that I have left I have come to realize that I really love Rome and the more time you spend there the more you will fall in love with it. It is a historical city filled with so much to do. This was my second visit to Rome but it was very different than my first. When I first went in 2006 I went for only a short time so it was a jam packed trip filled with site seeing and delicious meals. This time around I was able to walk around the entire city and get to know the area while enjoying the sites for a second time around.

My favorite site to see in Rome will always be the Colosseum. It was just as amazing the second time around. It is truly incredible to stand and look up into so much history. It reminds you how much bigger life is than your little world and it is just remarkable. I did some heavy site seeing for three days which included all I wanted to see while in Rome. On my last day of site seeing we went to see the Vatican even though it was raining. After a train ride and a decent walk in the rain we arrived to the Vatican- soaking wet- to realize it was closed! I was not shocked at all as most of the sight seeing we had done until then had gone pretty smoothly and it was about time for something to go askew. We took pictures in the rain outside the gate, had a good little laugh, and decided to just indulge in some of the very famous and delicious gelato that Italy has to offer.

Rome was a fun city. We all walked SOOOO much and were very tired at the end of each day. We ate a lot but Rome is very touristy so it was a little tough to find authentic Italian food in the city. On our last night we did luck out with a delicious meal and friendly service. Rome is just a lovely city. It is filled with so much history and it is quite impressive to see. My backpacking crew continues to grow smaller as it is just me and Nikki now. After two short weeks of tons of laughs, lots of sites, amazing travel experiences, and an absurd amount of delicious food, Andrew made his way back to the states. Nikki and I continued with our Italian adventure but we will be parting ways soon. Thanks for joining us for the time that you did Andrew! I hope you got a taste of the backpacker lifestyle and fell in love with it just like I did!

My favorite site- the Colosseum

Arch of Constantine

Roman Forum

bad nose job

ruins

Great view of the Colosseum

Trevi Fountain

Tourists everywhere!

Band in the piazza

Amazing shorts!

my favorite Piazza

Inside the Pantheon

Piazza at night

Italian food!

Spanish Steps- once again- tourists everywhere!

Vatican Walls- makes a Giant look small

The Vatican is closed?!- oh yeah, and it is raining! AMAZING!

The Bakery I spent 20 Euros at! Opps!

Ciao and farewell to another backpacker

Amazing sidewalk chalk

Old track where they used to do Chariot races

Pretty River

Gnocchi- one of my favorites!

Gelato!

St. Peters Basilica (the Dome)

We loved Rome!

Sorrento- living la Dolce Vita- the art of doing nothing!

After a busy 5 days of site seeing in Rome I was ready for a couple of days of relaxation in the South of Italy. A couple of days turned into a week while staying at a nice B&B in Sorrento called Mama Camilla's. Nikki joined me for a week of the sweet life and we definitely mastered the "art of doing nothing".... also known as the Italian way of life. We managed to see two other picturesque towns during our stay there but for the most part most of our activities included eating, relaxing, beaching it, and making friends.

We  were able to see the lovely Positano half way through our time in Sorrento. To give you a small bit of background on the area these pretty Italian towns are all built in the cliffs. They are absolutely beautiful but as you can imagine the roads to get to and from each of them are like a roller coaster. I got a little bus sick on the way to Positano but I made it there and enjoyed the incredible cliff and ocean views along the way. Once we were in town we went back to our lazy ways and napped on the beach before walking the small town to get some good pictures- my camera died- of course!- so Nikki and our new Brazilian friend Danni did most of the photo work. Positano is built up and down a cliff so after a couple of hours on the beach and walking around we made our way up what felt like a 1000 stairs to catch our bus back to Sorrento.

After a few days at Mama Camilla's Nikki and I had made quite a few friends- one of them who had been living there for a month and offered to take a group of us out for a night in Sorrento with his Italian friends. We had an amazing night! A group of about 10 of us spent the entire night dancing until 6am. We were even able to catch the sun coming up just a bit right before we all happily cuddled into our beds. The night out in Sorrento was amazing but Nikki and I had to catch a boat early the next morning to visit the Island town Capri. We were both in pretty poor shape, but naturally, I was in rare form. The first half of the boat trip were not my best hours and when we arrived to Capri I definitely took the cable car up to the top of the cliff town instead of climbing the stairs like in Positano. I am happy to say I was pretty entertaining company for those around so it was worth it to me. Once back on the boat I jumped into the freezing cold amazingly blue water of Capri and felt refreshed and energized for the rest of the trip. I enjoyed the afternoon on a boat and was happy to have had both great experiences! My time in the South was great! I made new friends, enjoyed my stay at Mama Camilla's, and even ate pizza in Naples on my way out of the South (it may have been train station pizza but it was still delicious!). I am now in Venice and make my way to Florance tomorrow.... a little less than a month left in my adventures! As always, thanks for following!

Pizza in Sorrento- so good!

First cliff view in Sorrento

Giant ball of cheese!

So pretty

Positano

On our way down in Positano- already scared for the climb up!

Our day at the concrete beach in Sorrento- no sand! Nikki and Danni

More gelato

Olive oil- yum

Night out in Sorrento

I thought I could steal a scooter :) - not even close

Capri

From the boat on Capri

On the boat- can't ever get a picture of this girl without the camera stuck to her face!

Pretty and very cold water

Last night in Sorrento- trying to make a Greek style pizza- fries on everything!