Spring Break 2014

7 hostels. 8 towns. 10 days. 

One pair of missing glasses, several sunburns, a Nutella explosion, and a few minor emotional breakdowns later, I managed to survive spring break 2014. Through all of the map reading, sight seeing, gelato eating, and traveling, this journey was the biggest growing experience of my trip thus far!

Vienna, Austria: On Thursday, April 10 the entire group of Nebraskans loaded a bus early in the morning. We found ourselves in a different country later that afternoon. We left our luggage at the hostel and began our exploration in Vienna where we were led down an extremely long road lined with stores and resturaunts. It seemed to go on forever, but a few of us girls did some window shopping, and I found a Milka bar in my Roo, so that helped! We finally made it to our destination... just in time for the rain to set in. After a slight change of plans, we all made a dash for the Imperial Treasury. The Imperial Treasury is basically a museum that holds a great deal of the Habsburg empire's prized possessions. When the Habsburgs lost their power, they were forced to leave all of their treasures behind. Very unfortunate for them, but lucky for us because it was neat to see! 

We had seen enough Habsburg treasure for one day, and the rain subsided, so we ventured outside to find some lunch. After lunch at a quiet little pub we found thanks to Jan (one of our group leaders), I was excited to get Starbucks. Little did I know that we would be heading to a cathedral that doesn't allow drinks inside... St. Stephen's is well known for its tiled roof, and the inside is just as beautiful. I was not about to get rid of my beloved American coffee, so I snuck it in my jacket. :) After a quick look and several pictures inside, we had the rest of the day to explore Austria for ourselves. 

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Inside St. Stephens. 

I had to get a picture to document the illegal Starbucks. 

Not so surprisingly, on the second day in Vienna, we visited a couple museums. The first museum we made it to was Kunsthistorisches Museum or the Museum of Art History in English. This was a huge museum packed with everything from an ancient Egyptian display to people practicing by painting replicas of the artwork displayed. The museum took us a great deal of the morning to get through, but a group of us found a nice place in the grass to enjoy the beautiful weather while waiting for everyone else. We ate lunch at this really cool market that Jan led us to (he seems to know all of the best places in every single town we visit). The market had cute little shops and bakeries. There was also fresh produce, restaurants, and other delicious (and not so delicious) looking foods everywhere. One of the foods that I found the most interesting/unappetizing was a huge barrel of sauerkraut. We found a restaurant in a quiet area and had some traditional winer schnitzel which is basically a deep fried piece of meat. 

The Museum of Art History

An artist who just finished her painting, I'd say its pretty close to the original!

Relaxing outside after our visit to the museum. 

After lunch we went to the Imperial Apartments, which was the residence of the Habsburgs for over 600 years. I have to admit that I wasn't able to see much of the apartments because Taylor had to register for classes that day and Molly and I didn't want her to go by herself. From what I did see of the apartments, there was a huge collection of silver which was pretty impressive. We were also able to see the Emperor's Staircase which the emperor would use to get to the apartments, so that was pretty neat! After Taylor found wifi and got her classes squared away, we had a nice little shopping trip on the way back to the hostel. I had to repack my suitcase when we got back, but it was definitely worth it!

The Imperial Apartments

A small portion of one of the Habsburgs' collections. 

Venice, Italy: A piece of my heart belongs in Italy. I absolutely fell in love when I went to visit a couple of years ago, and there are no words to describe how incredible it felt to be back. I was more than eager to say my goodbyes to Vienna, hop on the bus, and anxiously wait 7 hours to be in Venice. I almost cried tears of joy when I saw all of the boats on the water and the approaching town from the train. I never could have dreamed that I would make it back to the place where my love for travel first began. It was very surreal, and I did my best to take it all in for the second time. 

On our first day in Venice, we experienced a cartoon festival taking place outside of our hostel, the Jewish ghetto, and some of the best pasta I've ever had at a little place called Alfredo's. Alfredo's was so delicious, we even went back for supper the next day! I should also mention that it is very easy to get lost in Venice- all of the bridges and water makes everything look the same, so we definitely had to be aware of our surroundings while exploring. On our second day in Venice, we toured Doge's Palace and the Basilica of St. Mark. We also took a gondola ride which was a lot of fun!

Venice at night. 

Gondola ride with some of my favorite girls!

After our gondola ride, the time had come for 4 of us girls to break off from the group and begin our spring break adventure all by ourselves. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but I was a little bit nervous. It was also sad to say goodbye to the people that I've spent every day with for the past month, but I was ready to branch outside of the comfort zone that comes with traveling in a big group. After gathering our luggage and a bunch of hugs, we took off to the train station to print off our tickets. We planned to take an overnight train to Rome and take in as many sights as possible before checking into our hostel that next day.

Mishap #1: I had anticipated that we would run into at least one problem while on this journey- after all we were only 4 girls in a country we weren't too familiar with. After leaving Venice, we had to switch trains in Verona to make it to Rome. When the first stop for Verona came up we got off the train and realized too late that we were at the wrong stop- who knew Verona would have two train stops?! Long story short, we didn't panic and figured out how to call a taxi. We were relieved to make it to the correct train station on time.

Ali calling a taxi on the handy little phone thing they had on the street. 

Rome, Italy: I have realized that there are some places you only really need to go once in life. Rome is one of them. Don't get me wrong, Rome has some incredible sights, but two trips there in a life time is enough for me! We got into the train station very early on Monday morning. I'm very glad it worked out this way because Rome is very peaceful in the morning, and seeing the sights without so many tourists is much more enjoyable. We were able to see the Trevi Fountain (which was closed for cleaning), the Pantheon (which was neat because we were able to see it right when it opened), the ancient Roman Ruins, and the Colosseum. Needless to say, it was an extremely rewarding yet exhausting day- especially after sleeping on a train the night before!

The Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon

Ancient Roman Ruins

The Colosseum

Mishap #2: I should start this out by saying that this situation seemed much worse at the time than it turned out to be. Plus being exhausted and completely unfamiliar with the transportation in Rome didn't help. It took us about 3 hours to find out hostel in Rome... Let me rephrase that, our hostel on the outskirts of Rome. It wasn't even close to the train station. Before we began our search for the hostel, we asked a man at the information desk how to get there. We thought we knew where we were going, but we quickly realized that wasn't the case. After asking multiple people on the street, waiting for busses, going the wrong way, and getting bad directions several times, we were about to give up. We even got laughed at by a homeless woman. Finally, Ali decided to go into a business, and the man working was kind enough to look it up and print off directions for us. By the grace of God, we made it to the right place. I will admit that the hostel was pretty sketchy, but we found a nice place to eat that night (the only one around), and we made the most of it!

Our lovely hostel in Rome. 

We were able to go to the Vatican on Tuesday before taking off to our next destination. Vatican city is one of my favorite places in Rome. St. Peter's Basilica is the largest church in the world, and it is an incredibly humbling place to be. Although the line was a little longer than usual due to Holy Week, we decided to wait it out to get inside. 

St. Peter's Square

The inside of St. Peter's Basilica. This picture does not do it justice. 

We left Rome on Tuesday and found out that the pope makes his appearances on Wednesdays. This was earth shattering news for me because seeing the pope was one of the things I really wanted to do in Rome. It was kind of hard to cope with the fact that we just missed it by a day. On a happier note, we were able to see the Spanish Steps and the people's square on our way back to the train station. We were also able to see the Trevi Fountain while it was open so we could make our wishes. You could say that we were more than a little excited to get out of Rome and onto our next destination of La Spezia.

La Spezia/Cinque Terre, Italy: The train ride was awesome, and we were able to see the sea and the sunset from the window. When we successfully arrived in La Spezia (correct train station and all), we decided to head straight to our hotel for the night. 

Mishap #3: I thought we had learned our lesson from getting lost in Rome. I looked up the hotel we were staying at in La Spezia and made sure I had step by step directions to get there. Basically, we were on the right track until we weren't. Luckily, we found a pub with some nice English speaking people. The bad news was that we were much farther from the hotel than we thought we were. The good news was that they called us a cab! I will never forget the way they gathered around the door as the taxi drove away. Their faces basically said, "good luck naive American girls!"

The hotel we stayed at in La Spezia was a breath of fresh air. It was clean, the staff was friendly, and the continental breakfast made me feel at home. Our time in La Spezia was mainly filled with laziness on the beach. We took a bus to a town nearby called Lerici, and once we found a beach, we only left for food and sunscreen! 

The beautiful town of Lerici. 

After our two night stay in La Spezia, it was time to head to our next hostel closer to Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is made up of 5 towns along the coast in Italy. It seems to be a huge tourist attraction (especially for Americans), and each town is uniquely beautiful. After a short train ride, we were in the first town, Riomaggiore. On our stroll through Riomaggiore, we found a cute courtyard for kids to play in, several little shops with unique souvenirs, a little harbor, and a rocky beach. All of the signs advertising apartments for rent also may have got me thinking about the idea of moving there someday... 

Riomaggiore. 

Some of the trails connecting each town were closed, but thanks to a ferry, we were able to visit a couple of other towns. Everywhere I looked was absolutely beautiful, and I enjoyed walking through all of the shops and restaurants. The atmosphere was just so peaceful and relaxing! I would have loved to do more exploring, but we found a nice spot on the beach and fell asleep for a little while (rough life). Our day in the Cinque Terre was incredible, it even ended with watching the sun set over the water while eating supper. We made our way to the place our shuttle was supposed to pick us up, and we ran into Travis and Julie, a couple that is a part of our study abroad group. It was so crazy running into them, but it definitely made our day to see familiar faces!

Watching the sunset after a long day in the Cinque Terre. 

Pisa, Italy: It was heartbreaking to tear myself away from the Cinque Terre area, but Pisa was the next stop which meant we were one step closer to being back in Olomouc!

Mishap #4: I was not having a good day when we traveled to Pisa. When we arrived at the train station, the first thing we had to do was print our tickets. For some reason I couldn't find my confirmation number on my phone and the wifi wasn't working, so I couldn't look it up on my email. I was not very happy with myself. It was ten minutes before our train was about to leave and I was franticly trying to find wifi to look up my confirmation number. I remember turning to Taylor and asking her what I should do even though I knew what I had to do. Long story short, I bought another ticket, and I'm still kind of bitter about it. 

After we checked into our hostel in Pisa, we took a walk to the only thing there really is to see there: the tower. There's a wall built around the leaning tower, church and baptistry. It only took us a couple of hours to walk to this area, see it all, take our pictures, and head back to the hostel. I was more than ok with spending the rest of our day relaxing at the hostel. 

The leaning tower

Mishap #5: Rewind to the nice continental breakfast we had at the hotel in La Spezia. There were free mini Nutella packets which made me extremely happy because I love Nutella. Anyway, I may have grabbed a couple extra for the road and stuffed them in my book bag...  When we got back to the hostel in Pisa, I decided to FaceTime my mom. It had been a while since we were able to talk, so I was eager to grab my headphones and call her. I pulled my hand out of my book bag, and it was covered in Nutella. My headphones, pens, highlighters, and other miscellaneous items were not spared in this mishap. Nutella everywhere. I got it all cleaned up, but it made me like Nutella a little bit less than I did before. Moral of the story: put stolen Nutella packets in a safe place. 

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and we had no problems checking in or getting through security. Leaving Italy was pretty difficult for me. I was doing ok until we boarded the plane; then I lost it. On the plus side, I was able to see Pisa through my tears from the window of the plane!

After one long, exhausting adventure, we were so close yet so far from Olomouc. We decided to stay in Prague for the night before heading back to Olomouc in the morning. It was nice to be back in the Czech Republic. After having some time to reflect on this experience, I've realized that I now believe in myself and my navigating skills more than I did before. I also feel like I can take on anything when it comes to traveling. I'm proud of us 4 girls for successfully executing a trip with only a few minor mishaps. The Lord was definitely there to guide us through it all, and I learned how to trust Him in a whole new way! We are going to Poland this week, so stay tuned to hear about my next adventure!