Where In the World...: Learning a thing or two...

Today we have a guest blogger...I know you're excited. It's my cousin, Megan! She's taking over the duty today, because I still have stuff I have to get done from work! Our family is getting spoiled by the blog...they can't believe there are no pictures or stories posted yet and Drew and Meg have been over here a week already! (How dare us not keep them informed, huh??? :) But truth be told, we haven't had time to sit down, literally. I'll let Megan explain...enjoy!

Buon Giorno everyone! I feel so privileged to be able to write one of these, as I've been following Katie's since before she left on her trip around America over a year ago! I guess I'll go ahead and start at the beginning of Drew's and my adventure over here.
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We got in around 10 in the morning on Monday the 31st. We were greeted at the airport by Katie and her neighbor Rosario who she's written about in the blog before. He's fabulous and probably my new favorite person. Anyway, riding in the car home from Venice, it finally hit me that we were actually here and I got super excited. When we got home, Rosario insisted on making us spaghetti for lunch and bringing homemade wine over to drink, so we got our first authentic Italian meal as soon as we got here!
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The rest of our first day was relaxing enough, although exhausting for Drew and I because we were so jetlagged. Katie had a little memorial day BBQ with her friends from work and then Katie and I took a little walk around her town while Drew went to bed (at 6:00 pm!) from utter exhaustion. All the small little towns over where Katie lives are super cute and they are all built around a common centerpiece: a church and bell tower. Katie's town San Quirino has a cute little garden and field behind their church that we walked around that night and caught up.
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The next day we went into the little market at Aviano, the town that the Air Force base is in. We bought the most amazing provolone cheese and salami and ate them as a meal-replacer for the next couple of days till we left on our BIG FABULOUS trip all over Italy!
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On Wednesday we went into Venice for the day. What an amazing city! Katie told us that the best thing to do was to wander around the city and get lost. That wasn't a problem in the least bit. It is virtually impossible to navigate Venice with a map. The streets are all little alleys and they curve and turn into other little alleys. There are signs all over that point you towards Piazza San Marco and Rialto, the main bridge in the town. There are gondola's and men in striped shirts driving them all over the place, wanting 100 euro for a ride... we thought we'd pass on that one...
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Thursday morning (my birthday!) we all got up bright and early and started our fabulous journey! We got on a train to Bologna and arrived there around 10 am. It was raining a little, but most of the road we were walking on was covered, so it didn't bother us too terribly. We went into Piazza San Petronis first where we saw the fountain of Neptune, a Palazza (palace) and Basillica San Petronis. The Basillica was huuuuge and amazing inside, outside it looked kind of plain, but we were told the the city ran out of money to finish their original plans for making it beautiful as well as humongous. Next we walked down to Due Torre, two towers that were built a million years ago and are now leaning. Drew naturally decided we needed to climb up the taller of the two leaning towers and see the city from the top. I'm not afraid of heights, but climbing up the rickety, worn, wooden 497 steep stairs was not fun. It was definitely worth it though when we got to the top. The views of the city were amazing and we got some great pictures! (Yes, I'm putting them up!) The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the University of Bologna's campus and having one of the best lunches we've had here. Around 2 we ran to catch our train to Florence.
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Florence was definitely my favorite city of the trip. When we got there we checked into our hostel and went out to find the Statue of David. We got a little lost, but finally found the entrance to the Academia and whoa, was David awesome. I didn't expect the statue to be so massive, but it's yet another of Michelangelo's amazing works of art that we saw in our travels. We were recommended to go see it and now we're recommending it to you, if you haven't seen it, you definitely need to!
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Our next day in Florence was spent shopping in markets, going to the Galleria Uffizzi and climbing the Duomo. The duomo was by far my favorite thing that we did on the trip. It is a massive cathedral that has a painted dome in the back of it. Climbing up the 463 stairs, that are made of stone and way safer, was no problem, especially when you got to the top and saw the most amazing view I've ever seen in my life. The Tuscan countryside is amazing: dotted with cathedrals and vineyards, rolling hills, the Arno river and Ponte Vecchio. It was truthfully breathtaking. You can obviously see the entirety of the city of Florence also. It's just so unbelievable. I'm in love! That night we had a great dinner of bistecca di fiorentia, a classic Florentine dish that is a simply cooked t-bone steak that was to die for, as well as some pasta and of course, vino!
We woke up the next morning and did a walking tour of the historical parts of Florence; saw some new things and learned some new things about buildings we'd already seen. We got on a train to Rome that afternoon and went to Piazza di Popollo, the Spansish steps and the Trevi Fountain. We had an early night that night and woke up bright and early the next day to go to the colloseum and Palatine Hill. We took a guided tour of both of those, which was well worth it because we learned so many cool and interesting facts about ancient Rome that helped make everything seem much more real. After our tours, we decided to walk to a few more piazza's and see the capitol building and some more statues and fountains. That night we went to see the Vatican and St. Peter's Basillica at night, because Katie said that was one thing we had to do and she was right! It was gorgeous! Definitely another recommendation if you haven't seen it already. We also went and got some more fabulous gelato and went back to the Trevi fountain and see that at night, which is unbelievable as well. It's all lit up perfectly, and again, we got amazing pictures.
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Yesterday morning we went to go do a guided tour of the Vatican-- an absolute must! It was so helpful to understand everything we were looking at and really get a good idea of the meaning behind statues and paintings; especially the Sistine Chapel!! They gave us a good description before hand, so we knew what we were looking at, and it helped tremendously. Michelangelo is truly an amazing artist and it shows in the Sistine chapel. The definition and shadowing in the paintings, as well as the detail and symbolism of the whole fresco are breathtaking. Afterwards we stood outside St. Peter's Basillica and learned some interesting facts about that before heading in alone to see it. It is hands down the most amazing church I have ever seen in my life. From the marble coating every surface you see to the gold and bronze ornate designs and altars to the paintings and sculptures that line the monstrous hallways, it is the most beautiful place I've ever been. We left St. Peters without climbing up to the top, as we had wanted to because we had booked our train back too early. Other than that though, we reallly did just about everything that we had wanted to.

We were talking yesterday on our way out of the Vatican and saying how we all felt that we had probably learned most of the stuff that we had re-learned over the weekend before in school, but it really doesn't take root until you see it all firsthand. Hands down, the past 6 days have been filled with the most amazing sights I have ever seen. You HAVE to come visit Katie. She's a fabulous tour guide!

Enjoy the pictures! these are just a few of the many we've taken.