Where do I even begin, I guess the first thing I want to say is that I can’t believe so only have one week left of the semester. These pay three months has been such a strange mix of feeling like time is going by very slow and feeling like time is going by extremely fast, but here I am, three months later and honestly i’m not ready to leave yet. So much has happened since my last blog post, which was before and my friends departed to Rome, yet I still feel like I could stay in Spain for another month or two. Anyways, let me not get too deep into my feelings about leaving, i’ll leave all of that for my post-trip reflection blog, but what I will do is give an update on everything I have yet to blog about, along with some tips. Since my last blog, i’ve spent 6 days in Rome, a weekend in Sevilla, experienced more of Oviedo, and currently i’m in London. All of these trips, and even staying in Oviedo some .weekends, have been amazing, and each experience has taught me a lesson in one way or another.
Right as I ended my last blog I was about to depart to Rome. I must say, that trip was most definitely my favorite, hence why we planned for it to be almost a whole week (but don’t worry I didn’t miss too much class because it was a long weekend of fiestas in España, school is still very important to me). Me and my friend did everything in our possibility to plan the trip as well as we could, including booking an Air BNB close to attractions, arranging a ride from the airport, buying tickets to all of the monuments and tours ahead of time, and even booking a pasta making class. That being said and done, nothing can ever go perfectly can it? Nothing really bad happened because we had pre-planned as much as we could but we did have a few tragic moments.
First one being that we missed our train that we were supposed to take to Frascati, a small town about 45 minutes outside of Rome where our pasta cooking class was supposed to take place. Honestly, I’ve neither me, or the friend I traveled with, have too much experience with real public transport like they have here in Europe. Therefore, we completely screwed ourselves overs. Public transport isn’t really a reliable option in Florida therefore neither of us were experts in metros, buses, or trains (including how big a train station is). Long story short, we missed our train by about 0.5 seconds and ended up having to take a €60 taxi to the small town in order to make the class on time. Extremely expensive and entirely our fault for not arriving to the station earlier, but do I regret signing up and taking a taxi so we could make it? Absolutely not, it was most definitely the best pasta I’ve ever had and the being immersed in the culture through this kitchen experience was amazing.
Besides the fact that we missed our train, everything else went fairly smoothly. We got to visit the colosseum, roman forum, and palatine hill (all with an amazing and extremely knowledgeable tour guide), along with all of the vatican museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and numerous outside and historical monuments. If you go to visit Rome, or any popular big city with attractions and museums, I highly recommend that you buy tickets in advance online, that way you don’t have to worry about waiting in long lines to buy tickets and long lines to enter because a lot of websites also offer skip the line options. I also highly recommend that you sign up for tours of historical monuments and sights because what better way to learn about the historical value and significance of sites than by being guided by a an expert and local.
Overall i’m extremely happy with the Rome trip we had, even if we missed our train and had various other things go wrong. It was the first trip I went on without a well experienced adult to guide me and I think we did a pretty good job at planning as much as we could and making the most out of it. Since this blog was so long, I’ll continue talking about Sevilla, London, and more of Oviedo in my next blog. Hasta luego
Getting rained on in Rome, but still enjoying the city 