La seguna semana..Venecia y Florencia, Italia

Day 111-4/19

When I got to Florence we went and met up with Brehanna's aunt, cousins and cousins’ husband who were visiting/touring Italy. We went to Michelangelo, which is a lookout place that everyone goes to watch the sunset. We got some wine, took some pictures then went out of “Gusta” Pizza. It’s supposed to be the best pizza place. Tasted good to me!

Kathy with Gusta wine!

They looked happier at one point, but I didn't catch it.

Pizza and wine. Yessss.

Brehanna and I at the Michelangelo viewpoint of Florence.

The next day we left early on a train for Venice. The weather wasn’t very nice, but later in the afternoon it warmed up enough to walk around. We took the water taxis to the different islands.

Venice.

Someone's private water taxi.

We watched a glass blowing show on Murano.

Then we went to Burano to see all of the colored houses.

There wasn’t that much to do in Venice/I didn’t think it was as wonderful as everyone says it is, but it was a good day to catch up with Bre.

We also tried “the Italian Spritzer drink.” It’s wine, some kind of whiskey? Or liquor? And sprite. Not too bad, but not that good haha.

That night we were staying in a bungalow (got upgraded from our original tent site because of the cold, thank god). Everything is a lot more expensive in Italy than Spain so we decided on camping for the “hostel” and it is what my host mom suggested.

Here’s our cute bungalow! Still FREEZING. But we survived (with more pizza).

The next day we went to the fresh market in Florence.

 Chickens! Ah!

Brains of some sort.

 We watched some guy make noodles for a while. Kinda cool! It rained most of the day so Brehanna and I drank some wine and made chocolate chip cookies. Our cookies did not turn out. Hard to believe, but the wine was good!


Then I went to the Duomo, you can see it in the Florence night pictures. It's the Cathedral of Florence. They started building it in 1296 and was structurally completed in 1436 by Brunelleschi. My camera died basically right away.

Outside the fake David. The real one by Michelangelo is in the Accademia but we didn't really want to go to see it. Basically the same thing here! Haha. 

Then we spent the day in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. Formerly owned by the Medici and Lorraine families. 

Spent the last night back at the Michelangelo viewpoint and got more pizza and of course saw another fake David! 

La primera semana de las vacaciones..Tenerife!!

Day 108- 4/17

Early Monday morning I left on a bus from Valladolid to Madrid to meet my boyfriend, Ben, at the Madrid airport. First we stayed a couple nights in Madrid. We went to el Parque Buen Retiro that I had gone to the first week of my trip here. The weather wasn’t as warm as it has been but everything was starting to bloom and there were a lot more animals out compared to in January. We went out to a nice Italian dinner and hung out at a couple cafés.

Then we went to Tenerife, it is one of the Canary Islands. Absolutely beautiful!!! It takes a long time to warm up here during the day, so during the mornings we went walking through the town. Everything was so pretty. The Atlantic Ocean water was so blue and then the background was el Tiede national park that is made up of a huge volcano.

This is the area where we stayed. We had a big balcony and a nice view of Teide! Spent some of the time drinking wine and spying on our neighbors haha. It was kind of a "Rear Window" set up so we could watch everyone on their porches in the apartment building across from us. Very entertaining. 

Spongebob's pineapple house..just not under the sea..

Teide National Park

Then we hung out of the beach, all of the sand is black because it is volcanic sand.. the water was FREEEZING!!! So I went in it for like 30 seconds. Lots of rocks too, I thought I was going to sink.

Playa de la Chica.

When we were walking we saw a natural swimming pool! You could also see Golmera, one of the other islands in the distance. Our first night we had a really good fish dinner on the ocean and tried a pulpito appetizer, baby octupus! Also really good. Ben and I were loving the seafood!

We had Paella one day for lunch. Delicious!! And this time I was even able to pluck the head off of my own gamba. The shrimp eyes freaked me out too much before when we had it in Madrid earlier this semester.

Our last night was pretty chill. We got pizza, watched the sunset and went to an Irish Pub where we watched golf haha.

Then we returned to Madrid and had the day to spend wandering around the city. We went up and down Gran Via, one of the larger shopping streets right in the center, and saw some interesting people in Puerto del Sol.

We also went to the Palacio Real and los Jardines de Sabatini. Then we had Kebobs..for the second time that day. Soo good!!

Ben left Madrid on Sunday and I flew from there to Pisa, where I took a bus to Florence to meet up with my friend Brehanna that is studying there.