Browsing Tag:

study abroad

In travel on
December 3, 2017

a roman holiday

For some reason, Rome was never at the top of my list of places to visit. Sure, I thought it would be fun to see the Sistine Chapel and the Coliseum but when it came to places I dreamt of traveling, Rome never made the cut. But when my friend Ellie came to visit and we had an extra day to spend somewhere, Rome seemed like the logical choice. From the moment we arrived, I fell in love! Most of the touristy sites exceeded my expectations but the best part of the trip for me was the little side streets and places we unexpectedly stumbled on. We stayed in an Airbnb in a very cute, bohemian area with lots of coffee shops and art galleries. Our neighborhood didn’t feel like a big city at all but more like a small town, with it’s narrow streets and cafes at every turn. We spent the day exploring the different neighborhoods of Rome and seeing the sites and taking photos, which I especially enjoyed. After having my Nikon since high school, I bought a leica q the day before leaving for Rome. I felt like a appreciated the sites even more after seeing them thru such a beautiful piece of equipment. Here are some of the photos I took of our adventures in Rome. And stay tuned for a post about Vatican City tomorrow!

// wonderful breakfast at La Casetta a Monti //

// TREVI FOUNTIAN //

// COLISEUM //

// PIAZZA NAVONA //

// PANTHEON //






 

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In travel on
November 5, 2017

budapest the beautiful

Budapest is a beautiful city that I am so happy to have had the chance to explore during my time in Europe. It has such a different feel than every other city I have visited that can only be described as a fusion of east and west. Budapest feels very young and modern so it’s hard to believe that as of 1988, Hungary was still communist. One of my favorite things about Budapest was how cheap everything was. They use the Hungarian forint, which is about 250 forint to 1 dollar. Our hostel ended up being around $10 a night per person, which is a steal compared to the rest of Europe! Below I’ve highlighted some of my favorite experiences I had while I was in Budapest.







Every meal I had while in Budapest was delicious, with the highlight being a lunch we had at Halaszbastya, which is inside the famous Fisherman’s Bastion (above), which is a magical looking fortress on a hill that looks like it’s out of a fairytale. Our meal was equally magical, with a dinning room that looked like it belonged in Beauty and the Beast and wonderful dishes like lamb goulash and steak with beet risotto.

We visited the Budapest Central Market, which is a massive indoor space with a farmers market type set up on the first floor and food stalls and souvenir shops above. I bought some unique and very cheap souvenirs so for that alone, it was worth going.



Finally, no trip to Budapest is complete without a trip to the baths. There are many different baths to choose from in Budapest (124 to be exact!) but we wanted to check out the iconic Szechenyi Baths, with it’s beautiful yellow buildings and huge pools. It was such a treat and we had a great time running from pool to pool to stay warm and trying out the different kinds of baths. But if you are going to visit, make sure to bring flip flops! They’re $10 if you buy them there which is quite expensive in an otherwise very cost effective city. But Szechenyi Baths were probably the best part of my trip and an experience I will always remember.

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In travel on
October 31, 2017

pisa

every few weeks, my school plans a trip for us study abroad students to visit some of the cities surrounding Florence. this past weekend, we got a chance to visit Pisa and Lucca. I’ve never had much of an interest in going to Pisa before because it seemed so touristy but I was pleasantly surprised. the church and baptistry were beautiful and the tower was actually quite interesting and impressive. I learned that the tower wasn’t poorly designed but rather the ground beneath it was marshy clay so it was unstable from the start. about 10 years ago, it was leaning so bad that scientists came in and pumped out the water under the tower which reduced some of the lean and made it stable enough for tourists to go in today. I wanted to go to the top but it cost 18€ so I opted to look on from afar instead.




besides the interesting tidbits about the tower, it was entertaining to watch people take the typical leaning tower pictures. we had a blast taking our pictures and found the best way was to balance on the concrete posts to get a better angle, which led to a lot of fun balancing poses, as seen below. the city was quite small and typical of small Italian towns but we had some yummy pizza and a Pisa specialty called cecina, which was exactly like same as socca, a dish I loved while living in Nice, France. here are a few photos I took during my time in Pisa.



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