Firenze

5 years ago in Spring 2004, a group of us studied abroad in Florence, Italy. Last week was a mini reunion to relive those glory days. And what better way than, where we spent most of our dinners in Firenze, than at an Italian pizzeria, where dinner was filled with delicious food, great wine, lots of story sharing and even more laughs…
I traveled abroad with my twin sister, our cousin, and my other best friend. We started out on this trip excited, anxious and not sure where these next few months traveling in Italy and throughout Europe would take us, but couldn’t wait for this adventure to being...
The group and I reminisced about our times in Florence and our travels throughout Europe during the weekends. Of course we can’t remember all details 5 years later, but to my surprise no one can seem to forget the traveling mistakes that were made. Being that this was more or less our first time planning mini getaways and trips or perhaps it was because we were in a foreign country and the language barrier hindered us- without fail each weekend travel started and ended with some kind of unforgettable “mistake”

Rome - One of the first weekends in Italy and our first trip we took as an entire group was to Rome. We decided to latch on to the boys trip and book the same hotel as them. Our hotel was not very lavish, or at the top of the Spanish Steps. But rather on top of a wigstore, that we had to walk thru to get to our rooms and the concierge desk consisted of a closet with two high stools pulled up to a shelf. I think this trip should have been an indication of how are traveling plans and excursions would be for the next 6 months.

Amsterdam - We booked our hotel at the Hilton (figuring the American Hotel chain would be a safe) only to find out once we arrived that it was on the other side of the city instead of the Marriot conveniently located in the center of town. Now if you all know about Amsterdam, it makes you pretty lazy and having to troop back to a far away hotel near the airport was not ideal.

Interlaken – we booked this trip at the end of April, so skiing on the mountains at the end of the season is not peak powder weather. Somehow while skiing we took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the mountain with no more snow and tons farm animals grazing! We were lost and could not ski down the rest of the mountain! There was a tiny cabin and then man in there spoke NO English.  But somehow, hours later, we managed to find a trolley to get us down the mountain. 

Spain – En route to Spain we decided to save some money and fly “Ryan Air, the budget airline. The catch 22 for the cheap fare was the grueling and inconvenient traveling you had to do… From Florence we took a train to Pisa, to catch Ryan Air flight to outside of Barcelona and than we took a 40 minute bus that took us to downtown Barcelona. When we finally arrived to our surprise we booked a chic hotel conveniently located in the heart of Barcelona. We stayed in Barcelona for 3 nights and then we were headed to Madrid for our second leg of our adventures in Spain. Our flight from Barcelona to Madrid was leaving at 5am. If you’ve ever been to Spain you know the nightlife doesn’t begin till 3am – so we figured let’s save some $ on the last night in the hotel, stay up all night and head straight to the airport. So we did that, thinking we would get a refund because the hotel promised we would, but that never happened (Not sure if it was the language barrier, if they were trying to scam us young Americans or perhaps both). After a week of “Spring Break” in Spain we had to return back to Italy via Barcelona. We had prebooked a hotel for the night before our flight near the airport. Remember that the Ryan Air flight flies outside of downtown Barcelona, So to our surprise (or perhaps we should have expected this a week prior when we flew into Spain) the hotel was in a shady area without locks on the room and a communal bathroom. The 4 of us girls did not sleep a wink that night to say the least. As we arrive at the airport the next morning only to find that my flight was booked for the day before our departure and I had to buy another plane ticket that morning… So much for saving a few bucks!

But even with these hotel nightmares, the trips were amazing, memorable, and filled with new adventures… So here we all are 5 years later, a little bit older and wiser in our trip planning but still remembering the good times, the sightseeing, the monuments, the partying and the MISTAKES that we made in planning the trip. Studying abroad in Florence was one of our favorite times, and I loved spending the night reminiscing over our memories as if it were yesterday….