Study Abroad Day 29: Study Study Study!!!

I'm going to start this post with another apology! We spent pretty much the whole day studying for finals! I didn't really get many photos but I'll post what I have. Callie woke up with a migraine so she stayed in bed until around 1 pm. Sam and I went to classes then headed out to the pool that has good wifi and studied for finals. We were by the pool for about 5-6 hours (under umbrellas) with our laptops and notes. I ended up eating some lunch and getting a strawberry pina colada:

I guess nows a good of time as any to show you what our hotel looks like. Here are some shots of what the outside it like, there are 3 pools, 5 restaurants, tennis court, basketball court, spa and of course the beach:

We went up to check on Cal periodically and continued to study until around 7pm. Sam and I went upstairs to shower and thankfully Cal was starting to feel better. We headed to dinner at the Greek restaurant and our hotel, The sunset was beautiful! Of course I forgot my camera so heres the only photo from the night, I took it on our cell phone:

After dinner we went back to the room to fit in some last minute studying (or face timing of parents) and went to sleep.

Sorry for the boring blog but we didn't have much free time to do fun stuff today (:

<3 Morg

Study Abroad Day 28: Beach Chillin

We woke up for breakfast and classes and Cal wasn't feeling very well. Sam and I headed down for a wonderful breakfast and class. I got a customized omelette and some greek yogurt:

Our view from breakfast:

Sam and I went to class, then I checked back up on Cal. She was feeling a little better and needing some food. We decided to walk downstairs and see what she wanted. We ended up seeing a frozen yogurt shop and couldn't resist:

Then the three of us walked down to the beach. Cal only lasted about twenty minutes before she went back up to the hotel room. Sam and I alternated laying in the sun and swimming in the ocean for a few hours. Sam can take a lot more sun than I can. So, I put up the umbrella for shade about halfway through!

We went back to the room to shower and get dressed in some normal clothes. Cal was feeling better and wanted some dinner. There is an Italian restaurant in our hotel so we walked down made a reservation and then chilled at the bar for a little bit (sorry no makeup for us):

The view from the restaurant was amazing and I've got to say I absolutely loved the food! They had these really cute balsamic and olive oil containers and we watched the sun go down as we ate our dinner:

Then we headed back to the room to study a little bit and catch up on some social media. We were all pretty tired again so we headed to bed. We have a full of studying tomorrow!

<3 Morg

Study Abroad Day 27: Exploring Anthony Quinn Bay

We woke up in beautiful Rhodes, Greece and headed downstairs to eat some breakfast before class. The breakfast at this hotel is AMAZING, there were so many options! I ended up getting greek yogurt and some fruit. I didn't get a photo of breakfast but its amazing and there will be photos in future posts. We went to class like normal and after classes were over we decided to head we wanted to have a beach day. We went to a local super market to get some water and snacks and left in a taxi for the other side of the island. We arrived at Anthony Quinn Bay and it was stunning:

We walked down a set of stairs and found that the beach was pretty crowded. We walked down and found a spot where we could have one chair in the shade and two in the shallow water in the sun. Our setup was basically perfection and we all settled down to chill out for a while.

Cal and I went for a swim and she spend the whole time freaking out that there was going to be a fish. At some point she screamed "what is that?!?" and I had to tell her, "its your shadow..." It was an adventure to say the least. We chilled out some more and then Sam and I went for a swim. When we got back neither of us wanted to leave the water so we chilled in the four inches of water:

We chilled even more and then Cal and Sam wanted to jump off of one of the rocks. I was supposed to be the photographer, but I was really bad and only got one of them that was kind of in focus:

We decided it was time to leave so we walked back out of the cove, grabbed a cold drink and called a taxi. On the way up we took a few pictures of nearby beaches:

The view from the restaurant we waited for the taxi at was beautiful:

We headed home, showered, grabbed some dinner and went to bed!
We were exhausted from the sun (:

Look forward to another beach post later today!

<3 Morg

Study Abroad Day 19: Sick Morg, Cal & Sam Explore Venice

A note from Morg: Sorry this post is so late I've been trying to get Cal to post it but she hasn't had much time until now!

Hey y'all, Morgan wasn't feeling well and decided to stay at the hotel today. We had planned to go to Venice the night before, so Sam and I decided to go without Morg. Later in the day she started feeling better and went to get food at Eataly then waited for us to get back. While we were gone the power in the hotel went out and she had fun navigating in the dark for a while. Anyway, I hope you enjoy a new perspective and the amazing steamy city of Venice!

We took a three hour bus ride then a boat into Venice, where we were dropped off at Piazza San Marco. We took a few pictures with the group then started down some side streets to get some lunch.

Sam and I wanted to get away from the square because the food gets cheaper and there are a lot less tourist. We found an air conditioned Italian restaurant which felt amazing because by this point we were drenched in sweat. After eating we walked along the streets, there are some really cute stores selling leather goods, masks, and other souvenirs.

Our favorite mask store

We spent most of the day exploring the streets and canals. Looking at the way the city was built is fascinating. There are no roads for cars, you have to walk or take a boat everywhere you go.

The craziest thing we did while we were in Venice was feed the Pigeons in Piazza San Marco. It was honestly such a weird thing to do, but I'm so glad I got the courage to do it. Sam went first, feeding them corn and pasta straight out of her hands. 

I wasn't as calm as Sam and freaked out the entire time I was feeding the birds.

 Pigeons are surprising heavy, but we got away without getting pooped on and some pretty amazing pictures, one even landed on my head! Vience was a beautiful city and I'm so glad that we got to visit it for the day.

Study Abroad Day 26: Welcome to Paradise

We started our day very early with a bus ride to the airport in Rome. We are traveling with a large group so organizing all of us takes a lot of time. We ended up getting to the airport three hours before boarding time, Cal and I rushed to get checked in right away so that we wouldn't have to wait in long lines. We got our bags checked in (under weight I might add, which is almost unimaginable) and headed for security. 

Now lets take a moment to discuss how lacking the security was... We didn't have to take off our shoes or jackets, they didn't make us take electronics out of our bags (but cal and I did anyways out of habit) and we just walked through an old fashioned metal detector. No one checked our boarding pass or passport and they seemed not to care much about security at all. This freaked me out a little bit but it was also nice to go through security so quickly. 

We ended up at the gate two hours before boarding so what else were we to do but walk through the duty free shops. My sandals broke while walking around in Rome so I bought a new pair; we also got some more sunscreen for Greece. I was impressed with our ability to window shop and restrain ourselves from purchasing unnecessary items.

It was time to board so we scanned our boarding passed and loaded a bus that drove us out on the tarmac to our plane. The plane was delayed so we sat for an hour and a half on the tarmac before eventually taking off. Cal just slept most of the way and I looked through magazines and used the what was left of our data on the phone. As we approached Rhodes we got some nice shots of the beach and wind surfers out the window:

We landed got on another bus and headed straight to the Sheraton Rhodes Resort. Im absolutely in love with this hotel and island! The lobby of the hotel is on the 7th floor so that it has amazing ocean views, we got our room promptly and decided to change into swimming suits and head out for some food and maybe a walk on the beach. We grabbed food and a restaurant by one of the pools, it was really good and we also indulged in some tropical drinks:

Then we walked out to the beach. Yet another reason I love this hotel; you simply walk down a private walkway, under the street, and arrive directly at the beach. The walkway is beautiful with vine covered arches and flowers everywhere:

We got to the beach took a few pictures: 

Then we joined some other people from our program in the water. The water is extremely warm and beautiful so we ended up just floating around and talking while the sun set on the horizon. I couldn't convince myself to get out of the water and take pictures but the water was too nice. So here are some pictures a few minutes after peak sunset time:

We headed back inside the hotel, showered, ate some dessert and hit the hay!

Look forward to another post from paradise later today!

<3 Morg

Study Abroad Day 25: Day Trip to Florence

Our trip to Florence began with a bit of a rush! None of our alarms went off so we ended up waking up with thirty minutes until our train left. We got ready really quickly and headed out for the station. We made our train and watch the Tuscan countryside roll by as we traveled up to Florence. When we arrived we got of the train and realized we had no idea where to go! We wandered around aimlessly, turned a random corner then BOOM there was the duemo:

We walked around the Duemo for a while and found a Magnum ice cream shop. They are Cal's favorite ice cream so we had to stop in. we walked in and were shocked; you make a custom bar! I ordered dark chocolate with pretzels, cookies and brownies on top (:

Next we decided just to walk in one direction and see what we happened upon. As we walked down a side street it began to rain. I felt like we were in a movie rain drizzling and horse drawn carriages trotting down the little cobblestone streets.

We asked one of the store owners how we could get to the David statue, it was really close by so we headed there. Unfortunately we found out that the actual statue is in a museum and because we only had one day in Florence we decided to skip it an just see the replica. There were tons of people around so I didn't get a good photo of David but I did get this of Cal being a goof:

We headed over to the river and it literally took my breath away, the rain was almost gone and the lighting was just right. I could walk by this river all day and never get tired of seeing it:

We were all getting hungry so we asked a local for a recommendation and had an amazing authentic tuscan meal. I got a zucchini and linguine pasta dish, Cal got a chicken salad and Sam got ravioli with meat sauce. All of the food was amazing but we gobbled it up too fast to snap a picture. We continued to wander around and ended up in the beautiful Santa Maria Novella square. I loved this area because there were beautiful flowers in front of the impressive stone facade of the church.

We once again wandered back onto a side street and found ourselves in a square surrounded by shops, restaurants, street performers, a carousel and a huge arch. Im not sure what this area is called but it was an extremely interesting place to people watch:

By this time we were all beginning to hit a wall. We found a coffee shop sat down outside and drank some cappuccinos and discussed life. I love that Cal, Sam and I are getting so comfortable with each-other. Talking about everything from serious subjects to completely ridiculous inside jokes. I think we've made a life-long friend, and that makes me so happy.

We spent our last few hours wandering around again looking at shops and just people watching. Unfortunately it was time to head to the train station. We overestimated how long it would take to get there so we looked around in the station. I ended up ordering a happy meal from McDonalds to snack on the train. As you all know the adaptations that companies like McDonalds makes abroad is very interesting to me so I could help but give it a try. Sadly the train arrived and we had to leave the beautiful walking city of Florence:

Once again we watched the Tuscan countryside roll by. I decided to take a video from the window and hopefully you can get a taste of what I watched for an hour and a half on the way back to Rome.

We got back to Rome, showered packed and went to bed. We left early the next morning for Greece, so tried to fit in as much sleep as possible!

I'm so glad we got a change to see Florence! It was definitely my favorite Italian city; I'll have to come back and stay longer next time.

Look forward to a couple blogs about Greece tomorrow!

<3 Morg

Study Abroad Day 24: Exploring Vatican City

Lets just start out this blog by saying thank you to Sam!!! Our sim card got corrupted the day we visited the Vatican so sam let us user her iPhone for photos. We owe her big time, love you Sam!

We woke up, went to class and then headed out on the metro for the Vatican. We had booked a tour online so that we could better understand everything we were seeing. It was time for some food so we stopped into a local salad place, where they custom made salads for each of us with fresh ingredients. It was the first healthy meal we've had the whole trip, and it felt great to eat some real food. Then we met up with our tour and headed into the Vatican museums:

We walked up some stairs then through security and into the actual museums. At the top of the stairs we stopped to count everyone and make sure we were situated. This is the only spot where you could see the whole dome of St. Peter's Basilica so we took a photo:

The first courtyard that the guide, Pricilla, showed us had some contemporary and ancient art in it. Unfortunately I don't remember who created these pieces but I've got some pictures to show you:

Pricilla sat us down in the shade of the courtyard and taught us about the Sistine Chapel. While inside the chapel you must be silent so she pulled out some pictures and taught us about the art we would see there. Then we headed into the ancient roman area of the museum.

These are some of the statues in the ancient roman area (notice the top right photo, all statues used to have eyeballs but may break over time):

These pieces were created when the ancient Romans conquered Egypt and copied their traditional art:

Then we transitioned into a gallery full of tapestries, we don't have too many photos of this area but it was neat to see some of the tapestries that created optical illusions. It seemed like the eyes of the people in the tapestries followed you:

Through out the whole museum the ceilings were works of art on their own, Some in 3 dimensions other just painted to look 3-d. They were all ornate and stunning:

The final section was full of maps frescoed into the walls. Each different region of Italy had a map and at the end of the corridor was a map of all of Italy. The impressive thing about this is that it was created by calculations not satellite imaging. So, someone mapped out the topography with just their brain and some paper.

This is a map of Venice, you can see the topography in the background:

Next it was time for the Sistine Chapel! Unfortunately photography is forbidden so I don't have anything to show you. We admired Michael Angelo's stunning work on the ceiling and the other artists frescos on the walls. After leaving the chapel we snapped a photo of the stairs diplomats use to have an audience with the Pope. The chapel is on the left side of the stairs and meeting room at the end of the hall:

Next we headed over to St. Peter's Basilica! This was, in my opinion, the best part of the tour. We walked in and the sun was streaming through the windows in rays and you could hear a choir singing. It felt like angels were all around us. Pricilla told us the history of the basilica then let us wander around to pray and take it all in for ourselves. I can't really describe the size of the basilica because the proportions make it seem small, you will just have to come see for yourself:

Absolutely breathtaking:

We headed back outside and into St. Peter's Square:

 Couldn't help but take a photo of the Swiss Guard in full uniform:

We walked through the gift shop, sent a few postcards home from Vatican City, then went to explore the square. I loved how if you stood in the right spot the pillars all lined up! (can you tell that there are 3 different 'layers' of pillars?)

Sam got this wonderful Panoramic shot of St. Peter's Square:

After exiting Vatican City, we found a Sicilian pizza place near by and grabbed dinner. Then headed back to the hotel (after stoping off by the Spanish steps to get some more tiramisu). It was getting late and we had an early train to catch in the morning! 

Prepare for our day in Florence tomorrow (:

<3 Morg