Study Abroad 2017: Week 12: Nov. 20th-26th (Naples & Rome, Italy)

(See pics below)

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving!!! Hope you all had a great day eating lots of turkey. So Día de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving Day) is not a thing in Spain actually, which was kind of sad... but I was in Italy so I can't really complain that much. It was hard not being with family, but I am grateful for the friends I had to spend that holiday with and even more appreciative of the holidays I have had and will have in the future with my family.

So this past week was just weird because I think a lot of people were traveling the entire week with their families or somewhere around Europe. When I rode the metro to school, it was me and a bunch of Spaniards which was strange because I am usually surrounded by a lot more English-speaking people than that. It just felt empty...but it was a nice change. Then, Tuesday was an eventful day. My favorite teacher, Rúben was sick so that was a bummer, but I bought a cool t-shirt that says ISA Sevilla on it to represent my time abroad here. Those things aren't related but I felt like saying something positive after a random comment on my teacher. So, anyway... I also had a great nap that afternoon during my eyelash appointment. So I get extensions on my eyelashes which takes about an hour or so and they put me in a recliner chair with a blanket and pillow. You have to close your eyes when she puts on the eyelashes, so please tell me who wouldn't fall asleep!? Anyway, she asked me after she was done if I slept well because I twitch when I fall asleep so she could tell I took a little siesta... whoops. She's super sweet though. Her name is Sonya and she's my friend. :) I took a picture with her since it was my last time there and told her goodbye. Since I had just woken up though, the picture turned out horrible and I'm going to go back and get a new picture sometime before I leave... then I'll post it. Hehe. Man, so much happened on Tuesday because then it was also my friend Juanita's birthday. So we went to one of the rooftop bars (one of our regular hang-out spots😉--> I'm trying to sound cool) to celebrate it with her. The cathedral was all lit up and there was no one up there for most of the time except the six of us who were there for her birthday, which was perfect. We of course got some delicious ice cream afterwards.

Well, Wednesday flew by because I had class all day and then had lunch and then one hour to shower, pack, and leave for the airport. I did it! Go Kellie. I got smushed on the bus to the airport because it was so crowded, but besides that, I had no problems on the travel to the Sevilla airport. I was meeting my friend Mary Jo there and we actually had two other friends that were going to Naples as well and were on our flight. Ryan Air is the airline we flew and they are just so inefficient so our flight was delayed to leave and that was a bummer. But we finally landed in Naples at 11:30pm. Okay, well I'm going to say this right off the bat in case you get bored and stop reading. This is the most important part: DO NOT EVER GO TO NAPLES ALONE. It is so sketchy. So...journey with me. Four young girls arrive at the airport and have tickets for the train/bus to go to Rome at 2:55am. They think, "Oh, we can just wait in the airport for a couple hours--there will be bathrooms, plug-ins, and chairs to take a nap on." Only then do they find out that the airport actually closes... so they go find a taxi and try to ask the driver where they should go...but the driver doesn't speak English or Spanish. The driver starts to drive around and these girls are asking if there is anything open where they could wait for a few hours... a McDonald's? Bar? Club? I am crying because I'm laughing so hard because of the language barrier. Lexi, one of the four girls, who is sitting in the front seat of the taxi tries English first...nothing. Spanish? Nothing. So I bring up google translate, type in what we are trying to say and hand the phone to Lexi who then proceeds to try to speak Italian to this man. No success--just lots of laughter. Finally, we get our point across only to get the response of, "Nothing open." Finally we tell the driver just to take us to the train station and we'll figure it out from there. The driver kept saying, "Not safe. No good." But there was nowhere else to go. So then, four girls arrive to the train station (which is stated as one of the most dangerous places in Naples) and we go inside the train station at 1am and sit down on the chairs. Shortly after, the Italian police start kicking everyone out of the station. This is scary because we literally have nowhere else to go if we get kicked out... Luckily, we show our tickets and the police tell us we can stay but that we needed to sit down and stay. It was freezing so we tried to get up a couple times to move and the police were watching and they came over and said "Sit-a down and don't-a move-a." (That was with an Italian accent in case you were wondering.) Well, 2:30am rolls around and MJ and I had our bus at 2:55am and the bus station was outside... so we decide to make the trip to the bus part of the station. Our other two friends had a train an hour later so they just stayed put. It was about a seven minute walk and the policemen had to let us outside because they had legit locked us inside the building. We go outside and there's tons of people sleeping outside and we had seen prostitutes earlier so we hurried our little booties to the bus station. We ended up walking in the middle of the street because we didn't feel safe on either side of the sidewalk. We finally made it to the big green bus, where there were more men of course, but at least this time they were workers. We got on the bus and sighed a big breath of relief. And then we slept the whole three hours from Naples to Rome and arrived at 6am at the bus station in Rome, Italy. And the second part of our journey began.

We were super exhausted, but we got some coffee and juice and fruit in our systems and decided we had to make it through the most of our day. If we tried to take a nap, we wouldn't wake up. We reunited with our other two friends and headed to the hostal MJ and I were staying at to drop off our bags. The name of the hostal was The Funny Palace. What a great name, right? Well, it said we were supposed to check in at the laundry mat internet cafe. That was literally what it was. We were a little worried what our room might be like but we couldn't get into our room until 2pm. That was good so we weren't tempted to crash so we changed our clothes, put on a little make-up to cover the dark circles, left our bags, and set out on our adventure. Welcome to life as a study abroad student. Sleeping is for when you are dead. Okay, but for as tired as we were, we did great. We had a few more coffees throughout the day, but we saw the coliseum (so cool) and explored the Roman forum. Our two friends lost energy (and they had their bags) for the forum so MJ and I went exploring while they took a nap sitting up on a bench. I loved seeing the architecture...some of the stuff dated back to B.C. That stands for BEFORE CHRIST which means a hecka long time ago. There was also this really pretty view of the city and with it being autumn, there were some really pretty trees that were full of beautiful colors. After that, we got lunch and on our walk there I found a public water station with regular water AND sparkling water. I was so psyched. We had lunch inside this cute place where everyone else was sitting outside so we felt like we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. They had gluten-free pasta so I was a happy camper. Then, we got ice cream afterwards and made our way to the Trevi fountain. Other people, aka disney fans, might know it better as the Lizzie McGuire fountain. We then made our way to the Spanish steps but on the way, we found this cute street with hotels and bars and restaurants that were full of lights and Christmas decorations. We got drinks and dinner around that area as well and then took a taxi back to our hostal. That is where we separated with our two friends because they were headed to take another all-nighter train to Venice. Good on them. I couldn't have done it. Mary Jo and I were in bed before 10pm. The hostal turned out to be super nice and they even upgraded us to a 3 beds room instead of 5 beds. And gave us a free bottle of wine. Europe--it's the best. My friend Claire was meeting us in Rome (she is studying in Lund, Sweden) and I was thinking we should have requested for her to be in our room. I seriously said to myself, "How perfect would that have been if she was in our room with us?" Ask and you shall receive. At midnight, in walks my friend Claire!!!!

Okay, Friday... we started out our morning with the coffee and pastry that was included with our hostal. I enjoyed my soy latte but was lacking in some protein or some fruit or something to carry me through the day. I looked on my phone for a gluten-free breakfast place and, with low expectations, typed in this place called Beehive into Google Maps, which supposedly had great breakfast. Side note, a good, hearty American breakfast is very difficult to find because most Europeans simply eat a pastry and coffee for breakfast, which is a challenge for those of us with celiacs. Well much to my pleasant surprise, the Beehive was located a one-minute walk from where we were. It was in a hostal and it was just a cute little cafe down below the hostal. We were the only ones there and our chef, a lady from Romania who spoke really good English, was able to fix me an omelet with vegetables and cheese and I had a huge, perfectly ripe banana instead of toast. I also had some delicious tea in my favorite kind of tea cup. I'm weird... I have a certain tea cup I like to drink from. So our breakfast in the Beehive cafe was definitely a highlight of the day. After that, we went to Vatican city and saw the Basilica where Peter from the Bible is buried. That was cool. We were going to go to the Sistine chapel too, but the day seemed to go by so fast, and we were practically there. So we called that good. I'm proud of myself for getting the names right because in Rome, I kept saying the Pristine Chapel and Prisilica or something like that. After spending the morning in the Vatican city, we went to get lunch. I had found this gluten-free restaurant and we were walking through this part of town called Campo de' Fiori. It was so wonderful... I can't even describe it. #moviemoment When I am at a loss for words, I am going to use that hashtag. It felt like I was in a movie that was filmed in Italy so I guess it fits quite well with my hashtag. Okay and then it keeps getting better because that gluten-free restaurant didn't just have gluten-free pasta, they had pizza and not just one but TONS!!!!! They also had gluten-free desserts, salads, all sorts of different sauces and toppings. I was in heaven. We met a couple from Arizona who were just the darnest thing. Is that a phrase? I wanted a word different than cute.... Anyway, after that we got MJ her ice cream since she's obsessed with gelato. We decided to walk back to the hostal since we needed to burn off all our lunch/dinner calories. Rome is much safer than Naples, don't worry. Well, along the walk, we found a palace with Roman horse statues on top (official name = Piazza Venezia), the Trajan forum, and a cat sanctuary. #WhenInRome right? That's a movie--fun fact. Which ties to my other hashtag😱 Sorry, I'm getting a little carried away. Focus. So we found a supermarket on the way home, of course, because I have to go to a supermarket everywhere I go. On our way there though, we found another gelato place but this one said "homemade" on the front. I asked my friends if we could just go inside. We step inside and they have so many options but the fruity ones catch my eye. They had kiwi and banana which are not normal flavors. I sampled the kiwi and it is incredible. Then, he tells us we can get three flavors in the small and I was sold. I got kiwi, banana and strawberry. I go, "This is amazing" and the Italian man working there goes, "You know why?" and I went, "Because it's homemade!!!!" and he goes, "Exactly!" True to their sign. Good people. So, the rest of the night we just snacked on the groceries we got from the store along with our bottle of wine, which we had to open with a key because we were too cheap to buy a five Euro bottle opener that we couldn't take home on the plane with us. Which, I just looked up and apparently if the wine screw doesn't have a knife, you can bring it on a plane with you..............

Moving on to Saturday, we woke up and had to check out by 10am. Luckily, they let us store our bags there all day again so we could explore the city more. I had looked up this park called the Villa Borghese which I thought would be fun to visit and then also Piazza Navona and the Pantheon were two other top sights to see in Rome. The park was another #moviemoment. The leaves were just the right colors and they were falling off the trees so Claire and I played in the leaves a little bit. Flashback to being a kid... there was always a little pond/lake in the middle of the park that was pretty to see. I also highly recommend the Piazza del Popolo. We kept just stumbling across these wonderful places. It was full of lights and restaurants and cute shops. We walked through it on our way to the Pantheon. After touring those sights, we got lunch and then headed back to the hostal. We started to run short on time but we were dreaming about going back to that gelato place from the night before which was called Wonderful Ice Cream, in case you were wondering. We got a move on and took our ice cream to go and made it back to the hostal at 4:26pm. Our bus was at 4:55pm and it was going to take us at least 20 minutes with the metro. We decided to start walking towards the stations and to try to hail a taxi on the way. We were cutting it close but we finally hailed one down and he took us right to where we needed to go. We found our lime green bus and then almost cried having to say goodbye to Rome and go back to Naples... at night... again... We arrive three hours later and decide right away we need to get a taxi ASAP. Well, language barrier/miscommunication became frustrating once again. So, apparently our Airbnb was located "out-of-district" and wasn't technically in Naples even though it was only a 15 minute drive. So our taxi cost us 50 Euros for 15 minutes, which is insane. We finally arrive in the general area... and used almost all our cash to pay the taxi driver. We were down to 40 Euros cash between all three of us and we refused to use an ATM in such a sketchy city. A nice couple ended up helping us find the exact spot of our Airbnb but they kept telling us to be careful and doing the universal eye symbol that says "Keep an eye out." We get to our Airbnb finally and then the lady tells us that it is a private room and not the entire apartment like we thought we had. Then, we find out that, because she knows it's expensive to pay for a taxi from the train station, that she drives to pick her "clients" up for half the price of a taxi. I don't want to talk about it. We made do with what we had. It was a nice place but at that point we just wanted to go home and get out of Naples. We still had a bottle of wine and we tried to open it with a key but it was a rubber cork and so it was not working. I felt awkward asking her for a bottle opener, but I face-timed my parents and they gave me confidence. They were super nice about it and we opened it, but by that time, we were so tired, we didn't feel like having wine.

Sunday, Mary Jo and my flight was at 4:25pm. My friend Claire's was at 10am. After paying for the Airbnb, we had 20 Euros cash between all three of us, and it was 15 Euros to get to the airport and so I was trying to weigh our options when I realized we had no options. We all had to go to the airport together at 8:30am. Then, MJ and I could at least get more cash from the ATM and decide from there. Well, once we got to the airport, we decided we should just stay there until our flight that afternoon. At least this time, it was early in the morning so the airport didn't close. MJ and I were in the airport for almost 10 hours because our flight got delayed. Yay. I finally made it home at 9:40pm last night.

SO.... moral of the story: Naples is awful (sorry for anyone who loves/lives in Naples) and Rome is amazing!!!!

So that was my Thanksgiving 2017. It will definitely be one to remember. I have lots to be thankful for--including you--for reading my post. :)

Hope you have a wonderful week!!!