Carrie's Travels

Last November, I ordered a DNA testing kit from Ancestry.com. It didn’t really tell me anything surprising, Scandinavia, East/West Europe (the overlap is Germany), British Isles. But there was one small surprise, 3% of my DNA comes from the Iberian Peninsula, ie. Spain. I’ve been to Spain a few times before; study abroad, El Camino de Santiago, and 2 different student trips. Spain and I are well acquainted. Well, now my best friend LIVES in Spain, and since I was so close in Italy, I had to go visit. I spent just about a week with Sarah and Nico in Muxia. Muxia is a very small town, on the ocean. It’s the end of the Camino de Santiago. When Sarah, Nico, and I walked the Camino, we took a bus to Muxia. Nico had been born there, and lived there until he was 8, so it was interesting to see it from his point of view. My trip to Spain started VERY early. My car to the airport arrived at my apartment in Rome at 4:30, because the car revive requires a minimum of 3 hours from pick-up to...

I arrived in Rome on Sunday afternoon. My first order of business was to find my apartment. I decided to rent an AirB&B for Rome, because I knew I would need to do laundry. I grabbed a taxi at Termini Station, and soon found my way to the Trastevere area of Rome. My first experience with AirB&B was great. The apartment was small, but it was 2 floors, the ground floor had the bathroom, living room, and kitchen, then the bedroom was downstairs. The air conditioing worked great, and the bedroom was so dark I accidentally slept until after 9 one morning! After finishing my laundry, I went to explore the Trastevere a bit. The Trastevere is kind of the hipster area of Rome, which is fine. I’m not a hipster, but the area was postcard worth. I found a cute place to have some dinner, then back to the apartment to lay out my plan. I pre-booked a tour of the Vatican on Tuesday, but I had to be there at 7:30 Tuesday morning, using a public transit I was not familiar with, so the ...

Anytime I’ve talked to other travelers, and told them that I was going to Florence, I heard the same thing, “Florence is beautiful,” often said drawing out the first syllable, “beeeeeeeeutiful.” And I have to agree. I’ve enjoyed my time here in Florence, but Venice is still my favorite place. I arrived to the Firenze Santa Maria Novella train station and went to find a cab to my hotel. The cab line stretched on for what looked like a mile, but it moved quite quickly and in about 10 minutes, I was on my way to my hotel. Italian people are crazy. They drive like maniacs, and the people are worse, they just cross the street at whatever point they want. You couldn’t pay me to drive in Italy. Anyway, I made it to my hotel, which wasn’t actually a hotel, but a floor of a building. I pressed the bell, and was buzzed up to the place. I took the world’s smallest elevator to the third floor, and when I got off, there are 3 doors, none of which are labeled, and one door has people “talking...

I LOVE VENICE! I said in my last blog that I didn’t care for Milan. I just never connected with the city, Venice on the other hand grabbed my heart the second I stepped out of the train station. If you know me, you know I’m a water baby, hell, ast month I paid $60 to float in a tank of salt water for an hour! I guess my childhood spent on Lake Vermilion had an effect on me. So, that being said, Venice is humid A.F. Imagine that, a city that has water for streets is humid! I’ve given up on wearing any make-up this trip besides eyeliner, because I just sweat it all off. But my skin has turned a lovely shade of bronze, so make-up isn’t really needed (not that it’s ever needed). I purchased my 3-day Vaporetto pass, and boarded the vaporetto I was told would bring me to the stop close to my hotel. A vaporetto is what Venice has instead of busses. They’ll hold like 200 people, but not very comfortably. The farther the vaporetto traveled down the Grand Canal, the deeper I fell un...

Yesterday was my first full day in Italy.  After flying in Friday and making my way to my hotel, I took a bus tour to acclimate myself. BAD IDEA. I was SO tired, I kept nodding off, so I went back to my hotel to take a short nap, before finding dinner. I had planned for my nap to be about 35 minutes, I set a timer for 35 minutes...or did I. I didn’t actually set the timer, but as I never fell fully asleep, that was ok. I got up about 40 minutes after I laid down. For dinner I went across the street to a little restaurant and had Carbonara for the first time. Now, I’ve never had it before, but I don’t think it was a really well done carbonara. It tasted ok, but there was a lot of it, and I didn’t finish even half of it. This morning I didn’t set my alarm, figuring I would wake whenever I wanted to. I was up several times during the night, and as such, when I woke-up at 7:15, I wasn’t ready to get up. But I wanted to be to the Duomo to get my ticket by 8:45 when they open, so I ...