ROMA

After the wretched suffering of the sleeper train we finally arrived at the Termini train station in Rome. We found our hostel, the Sandy Hostel. It seemed a little sketchy at first. We walked in a big blueish door and up it seemed like a million flights of stairs. But it actually turned out to be pretty good. The first night I was in a room without Candice and Michelle, with 3 strangers. I met the boy first, he was about my age and with him was his mom and sister. So that turned out good! I was grateful it wasn't some crazies!! They were so nice to me and they gave us their tour bus passes to use the next day because they were leaving.

The first site in Rome we saw was the Pantheon. It was pretty darn cool. Before we went in we had our first gelato, and it was AMAZING!! It was actually the best we had in all our time spent in Rome.

Eating delicious gelato outside the Pantheon. I had pistachio and hazlenut... mmm heavenly :)

Michelle and I in front of the Pantheon

We had time and some energy for one more event that night, so we went to the Museo Nazionale Romano....LAME. It really wasn't that cool. The cool stuff it did have was fake, they had copies of all the famous works.

We went around finding funny things to make up for the lameness and wasted money

We had a really good dinner. We ate outside and listened to accordian players (they are EVERYWHERE), and our waiter was awesome.


This was our appetizer, caprese, and it was soo yummy!

DAY 2
We got up bright and early to go to Vatican City. We saw it all... the museum, sistine chapel, St. Peters Basilica, and we picked the day of the big mass so we saw the Pope! We were waiting in line for St. Peters Basilica and we met a girl, Liz, from east LA who was there by herself and she became our friend!

The Pope!

Inside the basilica- it was so huge and beautiful

The dome of the basilica is behind us

We hiked to the top of the basilica, the Vatican city is behind me. It was a pretty cool view.

When we were through at the Vatican, we took our free tour bus passes and rode the bus for 2 1/2 hours. It was a pretty cool way to see a lot of things.

We went to the Spanish Steps, and I kinda think they are overrated... We got there and then left because it wasn't much to see. I know we did miss the month of may when all the beautiful flowers are there, so maybe that's why. Our new roommate, Giovanni from South Africa, wanted us to go with him to check out the night life at the Spanish steps... we didn't take the invite. So maybe that's cooler...haha!

The Spanish Steps are behind us...not much to see hu?

The Trevi Fountains were pretty dang cool to see

DAY 3
We went to the Coloseum which was AWESOME! We took about a billion pictures! We also went to the Roman Forum. We totally spotted a mormon family there! We kinda stalked them to try to find out! haha There were 2 boys that looked about our age and their parents. We found out that they are from Utah and just picked up their twin boys from their missions! They picked up one from France and then came to Rome and picked up the other one.

Part of the Roman Forum

We went to the San Callisto Catacombs which were really cool! We didn't really know exactly where we were going, but we met a family who was going to the same place and also didn't really know the way either! So the blind was leading the blind! But we made it!! Yay! We couldn't take pictures in the catacombs which was a bummer, so we just got outside pics. After the catacombs we waited for quite a while for the bus on the Appian Way- one of the earliest important roads in Rome.

Beautiful scenery outside the catacombs

Just chillin on the Appian Way...


We loved all of the columns everywhere we went!


1...2...3... JUMP

Top left, bottom middle, and right middle: Santorini Sunset
Bottom left: Base of Eiffel Tower
Top middle: Roman Forum
Top right: Colosseum
Bottom right: Highest point in Santorini

Paris- 2nd half

Our last 2 days were just as exciting and full as the first 2! We went to a farmers market that was so cool! It was like all local people there. It's definitely not a tourist trap which was awesome. I bought a purse here and we bought some lunch here- fruit and baguettes! YUMMY! After the market we visited Versailles. The Château de Versailles is pretty incredible! The grounds were so beautiful too.

All sorts of bread at the market...

Our fun purses :)

The golden gate outside the Chateau de Versailles

The Hall of Mirrors

The grounds

More grounds. It was really windy!!

The outside of the Chateau

Our last day in Paris we went to the Louvre, went to a delicious bakery called Laduree, walked a lot all day, and got on our sleeper train to Rome. The sleeper train was MISERABLE!!! I will NEVER do that again!! It was hot and stinky and I started to get clostrophobic in the small space. We shared a 6 man cabin with a nice French couple and a Nigerian woman who, no offence, smelled and took up so much room.

The Louvre

Me and Mona, no biggie


So I thought this only happened in movies, but we went to the laundromat and someone put too much soap in the washer and it kept getting closer, and closer, and closer... haha


It was almost too pretty to eat!


This is a picture of our cabin...there are 2 beds on top that you can't see in the picture


This basically sums up what I felt like for 14 hours of misery!

PARIS

We left London to go to Paris at 5:30 AM. When we arrived we were so dead tired and everything was so foreign and people were speaking French all around us and we had no clue where we were at and needless to say we were pretty frustrated. It took us a while to find our hostel, which was called the 'Perfect Hostel.' Once we got to the hostel we took a 2 hour nap!

After we were rejuvenated we visited the Arc de Triomphe. We hiked to the top and it was an incredible view of Paris. We liked this place so much that we came back another night to see the night view of Paris. It was beautiful!

Most people we asked to take a picture of the 3 of us took a horrible picture. We call this our "money shot" because the nice man from Chicago took a SWEET pic of us in front of theArc.

This is on top of the Arc with the Eiffel Tower behind me!

We also went to the Eiffel Tower a couple of times. Here is a collage of pics.

I don't know if you can tell, but the bottom right picture is us jumping at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

My absolute favorite view of Paris was from the Sacre Coeur (translation: Sacred Heart). It is a Roman Catholic basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is kind of up on a hill, so you climb stairs to the basilica and it's a great view from there. The view was so awesome because it's a huge panoramic view with nothing like bars in your way. Then we also hiked to the top of the basilica and that was a great view too.

This is the view standing at the bottom of the Sacre Coeur.

Here is the view once we got to the top of the stairs- at the entrance of the basilica.


This is at the top of the basilica. You can see the Eiffel Tower behind us- it looks so small!!

St. Chapelle is absolutely beautiful. The stained glass inside is just breath taking. Picutres don't do justice! They don't really do justice for antying really!

Outside St. Chapelle


The pretty stained glass

We had to visit Notre Dame!

We were trying to find our way to the Pantheon, and we got a little lost (not unusual) and we found these beautiful gardens. We don't even know what they are or anything, but we browsed around and loved it there! I loved the pretty flowers. We also found a huge golden head...




We visited the Pantheon. It was built after the Pantheon in Rome. It was pretty sweet.






We went to Musee d'orsay and it was awesome! There was Monet, Manet, Degas, Whistler, and much more!! Here are some of the famous works...


These are all things we crammed within the the first 2 days we were in Paris. There is more to come!

LONDON TOWN

We made it to London and it seems like a blur to me! It went by so fast! London was pretty awesome. We stayed in the Mowbray Court Hotel where apparently lots of BYU students stay while staying in London. It was a pretty good location. The tube station was just around the corner and we could get to the main sites pretty quick.

Candice and I in front of our hotel

Day 1... We went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We were there about an hour early waiting, it was really crowded, so HOT, and not very exciting....kind of a disappointment. I know a lot of people think it's awesome, but I wasn't super impressed.

I don't know how they didn't have heat strokes with those outfits on!

We took a boat city cruise down the Thames River, which was pretty sweet. It took us from Westminster to Greenwich. We saw a lot of the sites along the river.


After the cruise we went home and got ready for...WICKED!! It was sooooo good!! I have been wanting to see this for so long and I finally did. I love the music and the performers were incredible! Loved it :)

This is us so excited to go see Wicked!

Day 2.... First we went to the Globe Theatre and took a tour. It was pretty interesting. It is set up like Shakespear's original theatre.

I found this stone on the ground outside at the Globe Theatre!

We were able to see some of the actors rehearsing

We walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral. I love all the cathedral's we have been to. We went up to the tower and down to the crypt's.

I'm walking across the Tower Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral is behind me.

This is on top of St. Paul's Cathedral. You can see the London Eye between the bars :)

We of course HAD to visit the Florence Nightingale Museum. She was a wonderful and inspiring woman!



This night we went and saw PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!! It was really good!

Michelle and I after Phantom! AMAZING!

Day 3.... This morning we got up and gave presentations on nurses that we had researched. Carianne and I presented on Mary Breckenridge who was an outstanding nurse in her time. We visited the Tower of London and saw the crown jewels, torture chambers, and much more!

Michelle and I in front of the Tower of London

The guards

We are at the Tower of London with the Tower Bridge behind us, look close...the bridge is opening for a big boat coming through!

We also visited the Tower Bridge. We hiked to the top and then down to the engine room.



We had our last lunch together at Hornimans on the Hays. It was pretty yummy! After lunch we went to King's Cross train station and went to Platform 9 3/4!!

Hogwarts here I come!!!

This is one of my favorite pictures! Big Ben is behind me! Big Ben is actually the bell inside the tower, not the clock...did you know that? I didn't. I think this building is beautiful.

This night some of us went to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall. It was an absolute amazing performance. Nicola Bandetti was a guest violin soloist and she is UNBELIEVABLE! I am so glad I got to hear her perform live.

In front of Royal Albert Hall before the concert


Inside the concert hall. We had great seats right behind the orchestra!

After we got home I packed my backpacking backpack to get ready for Paris! We left at 4:30AM the next morning...