Spring Break Part 2.3: MONACO!!!

Trip:8

Life:18

So here's a little background on Monaco. Its an itty bitty principality on the French Riviera really close to the French/ Italian border. I have no idea how it survived as an independent state, but it totally is, its even got a royal family. The speak French there and accept the Euro, and luckily the French Eurail pass includes Monaco so we decided to stop there for the day in between Milan and Nice. The only problem with that is we still looked like the night/ day before and smelled like an italian club, which incase you've never been is an extremely unpleasant smell. Cigarette smoke, body odor and spilled gin and tonics.... not so nice. Did I mention that Monaco is one of the classiest places in the world? oops...

Checking out the view....

Looking worn out and gross but still happy to be out in the Mediterranean sun!!

Us in front of the Grand Casino. You had to be 21 to go in, and also had to not look like a bum so no gambling for me!

Me and Jess!!!

Oh this is kind of cool, in this picture I'm standing in Monaco (the wall's in Monaco too), the first Pennisula is France, and the land that you can see jutting out right under hte cloud is Italy. Three countries one picture- not bad, huh?

Spring Break Part 2.2: Milan Madness

So we kind of failed in our plan to get to Milan. The orginal plan was to leave Venice in the morning, stop in Verona for lunch, and then get to Milan with plent of time to spare to meet up with Kirsten when her flight got in at 5 and then spend the whole night celebrating her 21st birthday and just sleep it off on our 6:15 train. The only problem was, no one told us that there were two "Verona" stations, so we got off here:

which is essentially the boondocks di italia. AND we forgot its Easter monday, which meant that the Italians were taking the day off from their work driven lives (ha) and absolutely EVERYTHING was closed. Like, gas stations included. So we were stranded, and didn't end up getting anything to eat besides communion until we reached Milan at 6:30. But at least it was a nice day, and the people who lived there were very happy to see visitors since aparently no one goes to faux Verona, and we got a few marriage proposals which was sweet, I guess.

Finally all 5 of us made it to Milan! Which in actuality is not that exciting of a city but the Duomo is truly gorgeous. If I were planing a trip I would stop here for a few hours during the day, see the church and then move on, other than this and a castle there's not much to see.

Then we went out to dinner, went out to a bar, and finally ended up at some rediculous guido club....

...and got far more attention than I think any of us wanted... BUT it was ok. I think we all had fun and we made it to our train on time and went on to our next destination! Monaco!

Spring Break Part 2.1: Venecian Adventures

Trip: 7



Life: 17



Venice was our first stop on our whirlwind tour around the mediterranean and the third place I've seen in Italy in my life. I'm still quiet partial to Rome, but the city was definitely gorgeous. There are no cars in the entire thing so it feels almost like an old world Disney World. Very cool and definitely worth a visit for the experience, but not really somewhere I'd stay for an extended amount of time.



Yes, they are that cute, I wouldn't have thought it possible either but there you go.

The girls! Brief introduction to my travel companions, The one to the left of me is Chelsea M, I met her and Jess (far right) on my first night in Copenhagen in our hostel. All three of us decided to bite the bullet and be social even though we were all really jetlagged and we've been friends ever since. The girl in the middle to my right is Chelsea B, who I know through Chelsea M (yes it does get confusing), and me and her really hit it off on our trip. Kirsten joined us in Milan, but in Venice these were the girls!

Some random canal, the usual in Venice :)

Venice is infamous for its medieval feel and its winding roads which are without a doubt adoreable but almost impossible to navigate. This is one of the rare occasions when we used a map in the city, most of the time we just resigned ourselves to getting lost and played stumble upon. It worked out really well :)

Last picture in Venice before we got on the train to Milan! One of the problems with the fast paced nature of our trip was that we didn't get that much time in each city but we got to see where we liked and where we didn't which will be good for future travelling.

Spring Break Part 1 and a half: Schiraldis in Stockholm

Trip: 7

Life:17

So just for clarification's sake I've decided to include the country counter thing everytime I go to a different country just to keep track of where I´m at and to make sure Idon't forget to include any. Also you'll see that it's jumped up one under life and trip since the last time I included it and that's because someone pointed out to me that I didn't include Vatican City. So there you go.



This is a picture of the restaurant we went to our first night in Stockholm which was SO GOOD. I didn't realize traditional swedish food was worth trying but it is. We ate Reindeer too which was pretty cool. I also included this picture so you can get a sense of what stockholm looks like. The main tourist-y Island (where the Royal palace and medieval town is) is chock full of skinny old buildings that look like this. It almost looks like a toen full of streets that look like Nyhavn, although if I may say so myself none quite measure up ;)


Nicky at the Vasa Museum, a museum built around this old warship that sunk in Stockholms harbor like 400 years ago.

me acting a fool in another slightly less exciting museum. Yes I will revert to 7 years old if you put me in a boring museum... so will Nick tho. He's taking the picture. At least now we entertain ourselves.

Ice bar with the fam! Notice mom's drink is glowing... not really sure how that works out... the place was definitely for touristsbut sometimes you've got to do those little tourist trap things and going to a bar made completely of ice seems like a worthy time.

Me and Nick at Skansen, kind of like Stockholm's colonial williamsburg but founded as a living museum earlier and intentionally put together in a way that displays traditional life from all over Sweden. Definitely worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Stockholm.

pretty cute folks huh?

Me mom and Nick acting fools in the mirror of our hotel room. This vacation was really relaxing as far as Schiraldi trips go, not that we dont ususally have a good time but this time there was no sense of rush and stress at all. Everything we did was at a much more liesurely pace than our normal eurotrips which are usually chock full of sites and museums.

One last family shot in Scandinavia! It was great having my family come see where I live and Stockholm was fantastic. Definitely reccomend it!

Spring Break Part 1: Copenhagen with the Fam

So I just got finished with my Spring Break which was probably one of the most colorful experiences of my life. I went to five countries, got to see my family and explore with my friends, and experienced most of the ups and some of the downs of traveling Europe as a college student. I´m going to break it up into chunks because we just did so much! So the first part is being in Denmark with my family from March 27th to the 31st.



First night my family was there they came out to see me at my hojskole where I live which was really nice because they got to see where I lived and eat dinner with my friends. As it turned out it also happened to be the night of a hojskole hosted Rave, which was a lot of fun and extremely rediculous. Nicky decided to stay with me while my parents went back to the Marriot down town so he got to see how the Danes party first hand. I think we all had a lot of fun being absurd.

The next day mom and dad came back up to Hillerød and we went to the Palace that´s right by my house Fredriksborg Slot. This picture is evidence of one of the things we found out about Denmark during our stay here, the Danes don´t get the concept of taking pictures in front of monuments. They just dont get it. We have about 12 pictures of the 4 of us where we clearly asked someone else to take our picture and they framed us nicely but didnt try to get any of the background in. It happened so frequently it became a sort of on going joke.

Me and Nick respecting Danish history.

One of the things I was really gad we got to fit into the time my family was here was going to Helsingor and Kronborgs Slot. This town and castle are known best as 'Elsinore' from Shakespeare´s play Hamlet. Its fairly common knowledge that my mom and I are huge Shakespeare dorks so that was a really cool thing to be able to do while she was here, and I think she really liked it.

One of the other important historical and cultural sites that I took them to was the Carlsburg brewery, which I reccomend to anyone planning a trip to Copenhagen. Nick was particularly pleased I think to make use of his new found freedom that comes with visiting Denmark and basically any other European country.

All in all I'd say we had a pretty fantastic time in Denmark together. Next stop is Stockholm with the fam and then off with friends!

Crisis Averted

So I'm on spring break and I was intending to wait until I got back to write about all my break adventures but some stories really must be told. We (Me my friends Chelsea, Chelsea, Jess and Kristen) have been on a Mediterranean adventure since April fourth, starting in Venice and ending in Barcelona. We got in to Barcelona after a pretty rediculous ordeal late Thursday night. The French train conductors were on strike (typical) so we had to take 3 trains 2 buses and a long metro ride to get from Mersailles to Barcelona (usually thats a nice 1 transfer ride along the coast). BUT it was kind of a hillarious adventure and my friends are really cool people so we weren't too upset just kind of stir crazy.

So we get into barcelona drop our stuff and go out for the night. We met up with my friends two guy friends from her home school (swarthmore) and went out to a few bars. Here's my only little intra- American culture shock, ain't a chance IN HELL my guy friends from Charleston would let a group of girls walk home alone in a city they don't know. Sometimes Southern sensiblities are pretty useful.

Anyway so we're walking from the main drag back to our hostel which is like 5 blocks away and we turn the corner and suddenly the street is empty. AND two guys followed us off the ain street. So at that point its pretty easy to see what was going to happen to me and my friend Chelsea who were the semi sober members of our group. So we tried to gather our friends in closer and the guys strike. And I guess my rugby training kicked in? Because I tackled the mugger who was making a bee-line for me and the girl closest to me. And ended up getting a few good punches in and ripping apart his old school headphones? So the only thing that ended up happening was my friend Jess' purse got cut by the other mugger, but she only had like 5 euros on her, and we'd left our passports at home. So I'd say we kind of got the last laugh? It was pretty scary though and we're taxi bound for the rest of the trip, BUT its still an interesting story nonetheless.

I'll write about the good parts of my break when I get back I swear. And I am having a great time!

Two days til the fam comes!

So my family comes on Saturday and I am SOOOO excited!!!! We're taking the first weekend of my Spring break (its the same as Nick's break) and going around Copenhagen and Stockholm. It's funny how much being away makes you miss home. I thought I wouldve gotten used to it going to school nine hours from home but being on the other side of the world is totally different. I can't wait to see you guys!!!!!