As some of you may have seen, my student teacher friends and I traveled to Italy over our holiday break. First things first: can I just say that it is the weirdest thing to travel to a totally different country in the middle of my student teaching placement? Second thing: traveling is amazing, but man is it tough.
I was challenged more than I ever thought I would be traveling to Italy. I found out two things about myself: I like control and I stress a lot. Who am I kidding, I already knew this, BUT, man did these two qualities/flaws about myself shine nice and bright on my trip to the Ancient City.
College students out there, listen up: your parents do a lot for you. And not only do they do a lot for you in your day to day life, but when it comes to vacations and everything that comes with those wonderful trips, your parents deserve like 1000 high fives and 56 hugs for planning those suckers.
Planning flights, making it to those flights on time, finding some type of transportation to and from the airport, finding your hotel, planning your days and paying for everything, (yeah, that is just the short list)- your parents have done it all for you. And it is not until you have to plan it all yourself and use your own money that you realize how crazy difficult it is. Now I may be speaking from just from my personal experience, but I thought I would share that when it comes to planning big trips like Roma, there is a lot of time, thought and money that is spent, and when you’re a natural stressor and control freak, trying to do it all is a little harder than you realize.
OKAY enough about the negative: Rome was gorgeous. We had sunny days (one rainy morning) and not too bad of crowds. We had our map, our backpacks, and we were ready to go. We saw all the sights, and even got a chance to run into the lovely Morgan Judge just one more time (hence the Orvieto Tour Guides | Part 2 title). Morgan and Abigail lead us around the quaint and adorable town of Orvieto, offering us a whole new picture of Italy. We may or may not have had to scale down (okay, walk down…) the side of the mountain (okay, hill, almost mountain…) on which Orvieto was placed to catch our train on time, but seeing those ladies again was more than worth it. Seeing where not only my good friend Morgs, but my roomie Wendy (love ya babe) are spending/spent 4 months of their lives was amazing. Thanks for the second tour Morgs<3
We experienced and survived the weird life of hostiles and airbnb rooms, ate lots of gelato, and met some beautiful people. We saw more sights than our cameras could hold, and even though the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps were closed, we still got to experience many corners of Roma.
The Colosseum is beautiful at night. The Roman Forum is HUGE. The Pantheon really does have a hole in the roof- we couldn’t walk in the middle of the basilica because of the wet floor from the storm the evening before. Oh, and there may be people there trying to rip you off, but there are people out there like a lady named Lydia who really do have a wonderful heart. Rome was beautiful, but it was cool to miss Prague and long to go back to a place I knew.
P.S. when traveling, grab a map of the city. We would not have survived without it!
We survived, and we conquered (really, it was a tough job and we succeeded). And here is proof of it all:
I didn’t want to tip the guys for a picture, but I found a way to snag one with them. Oh, and those guys didn’t have heads, and I loved it.
Traveling really does make you grow up- and you get to see cool things along the way.
See you soon,
Stephanie Lynn
gwenn | lynn 
