Ciao Bella!

After 2 months in dreary, drizzly London, Spring Break in Italy was a welcome change. Kayla, Paige, and I took on Pisa, Cinque Terre, Florence and Rome in 6 days and had the time of our lives. The most noteworthy detail of our adventure is that I do not think the temperature dropped below 60 degrees the entire week. We found ourselves celebrating a sunburn after a day spent outside soaking up the rays and exploring a beautiful city... that's the happiest I have ever been to have a sunburn.

Our trip began in Pisa. We flew into the airport there and spent the afternoon getting accustomed to the sunshine and embracing the fact that we were going to be shameless tourists for a week. We took pictures with the Leaning Tower in every pose you could imagine, and even captured a few of our fellow tourists in especially interesting poses. All the while, we had our backpacks strapped on tight and full of a weeks worth of clothes. We had initially been nervous about being three girls traveling alone to Italy, and our fears were temporarily recognized about five minutes after arriving in Pisa when Kayla's purse was attacked by a homeless woman, but that was the worst that happened all week. After taking the token tourist pictures and fishing our sunglasses out of the depths of our backpacks, we wandered into a restaurant for our first Italian meal. It just so happened that we ate outside with a gorgeous view of the Tower, and thoroughly enjoyed our pizza and pasta (we had no idea at this point how tired we would eventually be of pizza...). We piddled around for a few hours until our train departed for Monterosso, one of the five cities that make up Cinque Terre.


We stepped off the train in Monterosso and there was no doubt that this was going to be a good trip. The sky was a left over pink from what I imagine was a beautiful sunset, and the breeze was blowing salty air in from the rocky beach. The three of us exchanged excited looks as we made our way to our hostel. My favorite part about Italy is the fact that everywhere you go there are random cats strolling around just waiting for a pet-deprived college student to pet them. I happily obliged. 

Our hostel was owned by a very friendly Italian man whose family also owned a restaurant in town so after putting our bags down, he escorted us to the family restaurant where we were given a generous discount and were waited on by his equally friendly brother. After sampling their mother's homemade desserts, we returned to our hostel full and happy and ready to rest up the next day that would be spent hiking the five cities.

Such a beautiful view!

Cinqe Terre had some pretty destructive floods a few months ago, and the cities were all recovering while we were there. This did not inconvenience us at all, except for the fact that the trail linking the five cities was closed and we were forced to find an alternate route. What was supposed to be a two and a half hour hike through all the cities turned into a two and a half hour hike to the WRONG city that was in the complete opposite direction of where we wanted to be... and we couldn't have been happier about it. We hiked to a city called Levanto that was not one of the five cities that made up Cinque Terre, and ended up taking a train to where we meant to go. But we sure enjoyed our hike and all of the beautiful views that it brought with it. We discovered that we are not very good at following a trail because we were constantly looking off into the horizon or admiring the scenery and repeatedly found ourselves off the trail. The red and white makers that lined that the trail became a welcomed sight after we tired of the moments of panic when we realized we were no longer on route. Each one merited a point and an exclamation of "MARKER!" when spotted no matter how close it was to the last marker. Once we made it to Levanto, we hopped on a train and rode ten minutes to Manarola which was connected to Riomaggiore by a walkway called Lover's Lane. This was the only section of the trail that was not affected by the floods and so was open to the public.

  It was basically just a sidewalk with a fantastic view, but what made it so interesting was that the walls and stones surrounding the trail were covered with love notes and hearts enclosing names of lovers that have visited. As if that is not mushy enough, there is also a large collection of locks left on fences lining the trail perhaps to signify the strength of love. You can imagine the dialogue  of "Ooooh," "Awww," and "This sucks" that took place between three sentimental girls reading all of these notes having been far away from boyfriends or any semblance of romance for months. The bursting pink sunset didn't help either...

"Part of your worldddd"

The rest of our time in Cinque Terre was spent exploring five beautiful towns, enjoying local cuisine and people, and climbing on rocks in the sea pretending to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I could go on and on about how amazing our time in Cinque Terre was, but I am realizing just how long this post is going to be and how bad I am at short-and-sweet. My third grade writing teacher told me that I needed to elaborate more in my writing...she obviously never read my blog.

At the top of the Duomo

Off to Florence! Our strategy for conquering Florence was spreading out our map next to my computer that had Google's list of "Top Things to do in Florence" pulled up and circling everything that it listed on our map. We worked our way down the map seeing everything that we had circled and many things that we had not. What Florence lacked in cliffs and sunsets, it made up for in history and architecture. We first ventured into the Duomo or the Basilica of Saint Mary and were awed by the intricate detail and ceiling. We climbed hundreds of stairs to reach the top of the Duomo, and it was well worth the trip up. The panoramic view was astounding. We made our way through museums, cathedrals, and gelaterias taking in the culture and exploring. We learned that three girls traveling alone in Italy was perhaps not the most desirable situation as we were constantly yelled at, whistled at, even barked at. The most entertaining though was the shop owner who said "Hey Charlie's Angels" as we walked by, or the man who called out "Shakira! Shakira!" as I passed. We laughed and shrugged it off, but we were constantly aware and cautious. Perhaps my favorite spot in Florence was the Piazza Michelangelo, which is an overlook of the entire city. It was quite a hike to get up there, but at this point in our trip we were pro hikers. My least favorite part of Florence was the Ponte Vecchio, which houses shops and shops full of gold and silver jewelry. It made me so acutely aware of how I will most likely never be able to afford to return there... That night we were able to meet up with a few other GLSers that were also traveling in Florence, and it was nice to see some familiar faces. Our time in Florence drew to a close and we once again packed up our backpacks and strapped up for the trip to Rome. 

We attempted to watch Mary Kate and Ashley's When in Rome to prepare ourselves for the lovely city of Roma, however we were unsuccessful. This is probably a good thing because we would have had unrealistic expectations that would have been quickly smashed. Don't get me wrong, I loved Rome. Imagine with me for a moment, though, that you are three 20 year old girls arriving in a huge city...at night...with a map that screams "tourist"... in a not-so-nice part of town. Freaked out yet? Yeah we were, too. We figured that once we found our hostel our feeling of unease would settle, but when we walked into our coed dormitory style hostel room and saw the creepy half-naked guy wrapping himself in a towel... we knew we were dead wrong. Coed dorms were much cheaper, but we learned our lesson: some things are just worth the extra cost, like all girls dorms. We turned tail and practically ran out of there to find some food and calm down. Eventually we knew that we had to go back to our hostel, but delayed this as long as we could. We went back and got a skype pep talk from a previous study abroad student who lived in Rome who assured us that Rome is not as scary as we thought and that things would be fine in the daylight. He could not have been more right. Unfortunately, towel-guy soon turned into snoring-guy so our night was near sleepless and we were anxious to get up and going the next morning. We adapted out Florence map plan for Rome and found that it was similarly successful. Rome was absolutely fantastic. Everything was so full of history and each monument we saw was more impressive than the last. We did all of the token Rome spots like the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (wedding cake), Spanish Steps, and many many more. We also found the best gelato in the world (thanks to a great recommendation). They had Nutella gelato that was wonderful but so rich we struggled to finish it. I'm pretty sure I have figured out there recipe for it as well: you take a container of Nutella, put it in the refrigerator, stick it on a cone, and call it gelato. Truly it was wonderful. We made our way to the Spanish steps to rest after a long day of sightseeing and were rewarded with a middle school flash mob rendition of "Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night" by the Black Eyed Peas performed in broken English and accompanied by woefully entertaining dance moves. Our day was complete.

Did I mention that our hostel smelled like death? It did. We got a hold of some air freshener and doused everything in the room while everyone else was out. It was a feeble attempt, but it softened the blow of the horrible odor. Our next and last day in Italy was spent at the Vatican. I have seen impressive places in my life and on this trip, but this was in a league of it's own. We saw St. Peter's Basilica, which in itself is a sight to see, but it also houses Michelangelo's Pieta - one of my favorite pieces of art. To say I was in awe would be a gross understatement. However, this is nothing compared to the way I felt standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel. As I stood there gaping up at Michelangelo's ceiling, all of my AP Euro knowledge came rushing back and I was thrilled with how much I retained and even more thrilled with how much more all of this information meant to me standing there looking at the ceiling itself. The ceiling was amazing, there's no doubt about that. However, it was Michelangelo's The Last Judgment that I had been itching to see. I can distinctly remember sitting in Barbara Stewart's class studying this painting and now can fully appreciate everything that she taught. I bought a postcard of this painting to send to her because as I stood there looking at it, I realized just how much I learned from her and how much richer it made my experience in Rome. That's something I feel deserves a "Thanks." I stood with my feet rooted to the ground craning my neck staring at the ceiling and the walls trying desperately to take in everything. The security guards looked at me like I was crazy because I must have been in the exact same spot for a good half an hour before moving the slightest. I can say without a doubt that that was my favorite thing that I have seen since I have been over here. I can't wait to go back some day.

 Our last day in Rome was a huge success and none of us wanted to leave. But London was calling... This time, we weren't coming back for classes. Instead, we began internships. I am working with the US-UK Fulbright Commission and loving every second of it. I will find time to write about my experiences with them so far as soon as I can! Cheers!

Edinburgh, Scotland

The past couple of weeks came and went too quickly without my permission... We traveled as a GLS group to Edinburgh, Scotland, I explored Italy for a week on Spring Break, and I began a wonderful internship with the US-UK Fulbright Commission. That means I have too much to write about to be able to catch up in one post, so over the next week I am going to attempt to cover all of the exciting things that have been happening across the pond. So I apologize for inundating you with information you might not care about... but then again, no one is making you read this...

This post is going to attempt to cover the trip to Edinburgh that happened a week or so ago. I cannot guarantee that I will remember much, because a lot has happened since!

All 26 of the 2014 GLS class traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland along with Lane and Andrew, our directors, to enjoy some haggis and windy weather for a few days. Upon arrival, we went on a ghost tour of Edinburgh that landed us in the "vaults" of the city. I will admit I was quite creeped out. I don't generally scare easily, and maybe it was just that our tour guide was particularly creepy even apart from his job, but the tour did it's job. We were given free reign of the city at night after the tour and we ventured to find some traditional Scottish food. I was determined to try haggis, but after learning that it was basically sheep's heart and liver oatmeal I settled for some safe chicken...the ghost tour was enough fright for one day. I had the chance to roam around the city and enjoyed seeing the Castle of Edinburgh by night, which has been the background on my computer for years. I stumbled across The Elephant House - the cafe where J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Needless to say, I was very excited.

The next day, we woke bright and early in order to hop on a bus for a day-long tour of the Highlands and Loch Ness. Sitting on a bus all day may not sound like a barrel of fun to you, but believe me it was wonderful. Our tour guide, Andy, or as he liked to be called, "Dead Sexy," played 90's tunes while we rolled through the mountains and took in the scenery and history of the beautiful countryside. We were able to stop at a few castles along the way, including the castle used to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The further we got into the Highlands, the more windy it got. By the end, the girls were all attempting to tame rat's nests of hair and everyone was wind blow, but it was well worth it. The sights were beautiful and the history was fascinating. It is lovely to be able to be so far away from big cities and tall buildings and for once to be able to look up and see the sky instead of a telephone pole. We made it to Loch Ness and were all able to walk out onto a pier to take pictures and absorb the beautiful scenery including four or five full rainbows. I had a close call that almost landed me straight in the Loch... as I began tumbling down the rocky side of the pier, I reached out and grabbed for Kayla, the first person I could reach only to realize that we were now both about to fall in the water. If it weren't for Chucky's Spiderman-esque reaction and quick save, it would have been a very long, cold ride home.

  The next day, which happened to be my 20th Birthday, we visited Edinburgh castle and ate fried Mars Bars. I'm not sure which was more exciting... the train ride home seemed exceptionally long, but that might just be because we were all anxious to get back and head out for Spring Break. It was a wonderful trip to a beautiful city, but the fun doesn't stop there! Hopefully I will have an Italy post up later this week!

Quick Update

I am tempted to say that nothing interesting has been going on in my life and that is why I have not updated this blog in a very long time, but then I remember that I live in London so that statement is inherently false. I have not met any more celebrities or faced the frozen tundra of a country like Sweden, but I did finish up all of my classes until next fall and took a lovely day trip to Bath. It's very strange to think that I will not take another exam or sit in a classroom until some time in August, but I cannot say that I am too disappointed. The biggest hurtle that the 2014 GLS class has encountered lately is declaring our majors. I would include what I decided to major in, but the likelihood that it will change in the next few days is very high and I don't want to put my foot in my mouth... If I'm not careful, it's going to come down to "eenie meenie miney mo, pick a major by the toe..." Actually, I might have more luck choosing that way...

In other news, the City of Bath is absolutely splendid. Three of us hopped on a train one weekend and explored the quaint historical city. We were a bit over zealous, however, and saw everything that we wanted to see with a good three hours left before our train left. This resulted in the other two falling asleep upstairs in a little café while I read my book... thrilling, I know. Oddly enough, though, I quite enjoyed it and it was not a bad way to end a long day of travel.

Tomorrow morning all 26 of us are heading to Edinburgh, Scotland for our last trip as a group before internships start on March 5th. When we return from Scotland, everyone is splitting off for a week long Spring Break. Kayla, Paige, and I will be enjoying Italy for 7 days stopping in Pisa, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Rome... that is if we ever actually book our hostels... These next two weeks are going to be full of travel and fun and I happen to turn 20 on Friday as well!

London, we'll see you in a few weeks! 

The Roman Baths in Bath

It's a beautiful city

Oh yeah, we went to Wimbledon, too...

...and Valentine's Day happened...

...and we went to the Tower of London...

...and we went to Westminster. Forgot about all of that...

Välkommen to the land of below 0˚ F

Our first trip out of the country was a huge success!

Last weekend a group of us packed up and headed to the land of herring and spent two days trying not to freeze to death. We were up and out bright and early Friday morning to London Stanstead Airport to catch our flight. There was a slight moment of panic when we looked for our flight and found the message "estimated fail" on the board. Naturally, we panicked and thought of every possible way to freak out instead of simply asking someone what "estimated fail" meant (it only means there is a delay...). While in the airport, I also had the best muffin on earth. I'm not exaggerating. If I was told that I would only be able to have one more meal in my life I would find this muffin. Lucky for me, we are flying out of Stanstead again to get to Italy for Spring Break... I'm counting down the days.

Cold... very cold.

Now that I have bored you to death with muffin talk I guess I can mention Sweden. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and definitely the coldest. The high for the weekend did not get above 12˚ F, and spent much of the time below 0˚. I'm glad that we did not find this out until after we were back in London, though, because knowing that would have made it seem much colder. We spent much of our time café-hopping in order to escape the bitter temperature. We would walk and explore for as long as we could stand the cold and then retreat to some café to warm up. I think our café total reached 6 in two days.  

Palace Guard

For the time that we managed to stay outside, we saw a lot of the wonderful city of Stockholm. If you ever get the chance GO TO STOCKHOLM. The history, architecture, and especially the people are absolutely fascinating. I have never seen so many blondes in my life. We had the chance to see the Royal Palace, the Treasury, and a Palace Museum. We learned about the Swedish Royal Family and talked to one of the Palace Guards. After all of the girls in our group took pictures with the guard, someone made the comment, "Wow, you have the best job ever, you just stand around and get to take pictures with pretty girls all day," to which he responded, "It's not the best..." I don't know how to take that...

Still recovering...

We walked to the top of a "city on a hill" portion of Stockholm and had a wonderful view of the river and the city. We also found a snow covered hill that was just begging for someone to sled down it. Not having any sort of sled, the unfortunate among us (or unintelligent) used the only thing that we did have: our bodies. This was a wonderful idea until we reached the bottom of the hill covered in snow and realized that the snow would melt on our clothes and haunt us for the rest of the day. I am still nursing a bruise the size of a grapefruit on my hip...

The entire river behind us was frozen over.

It was our first trip out of the UK and we could not have picked a better place to go! I truly hope that one day I will get to return to Stockholm and spend a little more time, because there was so much to see and so many more cafés to visit! 

IS THIS REAL LIFE?!

First of all, I'm too excited to try to make this post in any way a literary work... so if any of my old English teachers are reading this, I'm so sorry.

Way under dressed...

Last night, six of us went out to Notting Hill to see if we could get near the red carpet for the world premier of "This Means War" starring Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. Not only did we get near the red carpet, but I was on the very front row where I could see everything and everyone. Kathryn and I had worn our Tennessee sweatshirts since Reese is from Nashville we thought she might appreciate this, unfortunately they did not do too much to keep us warm. So by the time the stars arrived I could barely take a straight picture because I was shaking so badly. That didn't stop me from trying, though.

That's Tom Hardy...with my head...

Tom Hardy (you might recognize him from Inception or the upcoming Batman movie) showed up and went down the line signing autographs. We had learned our lesson last time to bring something for them to sign, but we are college students with limited resources so all I had was my journal...best journal entries EVER. He was so nice and when I thanked him for signing my journal he replied with a very chipper and very British, "Oh you're welcome!"

Chris Pine

Chris Pine (from Star Trek and the Princess Diaries 2) arrived and was rushed down the line. He stopped signing right in front of me, so unfortunately my journal didn't get to meet him. The security guard that was watching our section was very nice and I had been talking to him before the premier. When I didn't get Chris's autograph he came up to me and said, "But you were so close..." which made me laugh thinking about the Jimmy Kimmel Halloween candy video.





Reese Witherspoon (if you don't know what she has been in you live under a rock) came and was signing autographs as well. When she got to where I was standing and saw my sweatshirt our conversation went like this:

Her saying "Go Vols!" That's my head she's talking to...

"Reese, we're here from Nashville!"
"Oh really! What are ya'll doing here?"
"We're studying abroad."
"What school do you go to?"
"University of Tennessee, we wore our TN sweatshirts just for you."
"Oh! That's awesome, Go Vols!"
"You make TN look so good!" (Yes I said that. No shame here.)
"Aww thank you sweetie!"





Reese Witherspoon said "Go Vols." I thought my young life had peaked; little did I know that the best was yet to come. The head-honcho security guard came right up to me and asked if I wanted to go into the movie. Obviously I said yes, but I though that he was joking. I said, "you can't do that can you?" He replied, "can't I?" A minute later he was handing me 6 front-row tickets to see the movie in the same theater as the stars... They escorted us onto the red carpet and we walked right past Reese giving an interview and Chris Pine and Tom Hardy talking to the press and straight into the theater. Our jaws never got back up off the floor. And I swear we were smiling the entire movie.

The security guard giving me the tickets!

I was a little under-dressed for my first Hollywood premier, but it was magical nonetheless. I still can't quite believe that actually happened. It's a dream I've had many times, but I always wake up at the end...not this time. 

Us after the movie!

So Classy!

Three Strikes You're Out...

When it rains it pours.

This weekend was supposed to be the highlight of my trip as I traveled to Paris to meet up with some of my very favorite people: Madame Bowen, Lindsay Fowlkes, and the wonderful Birthday-Girl Hannah Margaret. After an unfortunate turn of events, Hannah Margaret was unable to go and since Madame's school group was leaving bright and early Saturday morning, it would have been me all alone in Paris for two days. For any grandparents reading this right now: don't worry I did not go to Paris by myself. I was very tempted to - had my bags packed and was walking out the door. However, I decided to call my Dad to get his opinion. I'm sure my parents loved getting a long-distance phone call from an unknown number at 4:00 in the morning their time...every parent's nightmare. I don't know if you have seen the movie "Taken" with Liam Neeson, but it consists of a girl getting snatched in Paris and her Dad coming to rescue her by kicking some snatcher butt. Well, my Dad and I decided that we didn't want to deal with that. And as my brother, Walker, said as his parting words to me, "Remember, if you get taken...Dad is NOT Liam Neeson..." I didn't go to Paris: strike one.

After moping around for a day (and by moping I mean going on the London Eye and booking a train ticket to Oxford...) I decided to have a good attitude about not being in Paris and losing money for tickets and such because after all I am still in London. Things could be worse. We headed to Oxford Yesterday, and as we were leaving I realized that I had forgotten my camera... that may not seem like a big deal but wait until you hear what we were doing in Oxford. We visited The Kilns, which is the house that C.S. Lewis lived in for most of his life. We visited The Eagle and Child Pub, which is the pub where the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkein, Barfield, Williams, and many others) would meet to have their literary and philosophical discussions every week. We visited University of Oxford's Christ Church, which is where the Great Hall for the Harry Potter Movies was filmed... If you know me at all, then you will understand how distraught I was that I did not have my camera. No pictures of Oxford: strike two.

I spent the whole day in Oxford walking, which normally is a great thing for me because I love to walk. However, that is not as enjoyable when you have a bum ankle and it hurts to walk. I'm a dope and have somehow hurt my ankle, so I hobbled around the city for hours trying to keep up with the group and making a fool of myself limping around everywhere. I felt like my black lab, Dixie, who waddles around with a limp. Dixie, we can keep each other company now. Limpin' like a dog: strike three.



Three strikes, you're out! The funny thing about being in London, though, is that even when things don't go as planned, or when things seem to be going against me...I'm still in London. I'm also very lucky, because my brother, Daniel, and his girlfriend, Caitlin, are in my part of town this weekend! Dan has been gallivanting around Europe "studying" for the past few weeks and his last stop is London. He doesn't have a phone and doesn't currently have internet, so getting in touch with him to let him know that I'm not in Paris this weekend has been tough, but it looks like we will be meeting up tonight!


I said "when it rains it pours," but ironically enough it hasn't rained here yet, literally or figuratively. Life is good in London Town.

Disclaimer: These pictures were taken from unsuspecting classmates who put them on Facebook because a blog without pictures is boring.