My Growing Relationship with the Rome Airport

(Above: Florence, Italy at the top of the Duomo)

Hi Everyone!
It's been a while since I've last written and my life has gone through quite a few changes since. First, my finals went extremely well. I had three of them last week and they were all long essay exams. After my last exam, our entire group went to lunch and then my friends and I rented paddleboats and boated on the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It was a great way to close out the semester.

I moved out of my beloved 37 Hyde Park Gate residence last Friday. It was extremely sad (I did not cry!!) I had some difficulty 1. saying goodbye to all of my friends and 2. packing all of my stuff into two suitcases. I looked like a mess walking down the street to the tube station with two suitcases, a huge purse and backpack. A cab probably would have paid for itself. It was also pretty difficult to see most of my friends return to America while I headed to Italy instead. (I'll get to this in a minute.)

My long day of travel was on Friday. I dropped one of my bags in storage at the airport, and got onto my flight from London to Rome. Unfortunately, this flight was considerably delayed and I missed my connection to Florence. 3 and a half hours later, I knew the Rome airport like the back of my hand. I finally arrived in Florence at around 11:30 PM that night.

On Saturday, I took a train with my friend Kim who is studying in Florence and two of her friends to Cinque Terre on the coast. It was BEAUTIFUL!! Cinque Terre is a set of five villages connected by trails. We hiked from the first to the fourth town on Saturday and were exhausted. The weather was perfect and the only downfall was that we spent so much time hiking that it got too late in the day to swim. The next day we hiked the last trail in the rain, which was a little difficult but worth it. I will post pictures when I get home because they are too pretty to miss.

Today I walked up the Duomo in Florence and went inside. The lines for everything are pretty long so it takes a while to get more than one site completed. The museums are closed today so I have to do those tomorrow. Originally, I was going to take a trip to the Amalfi Coast this weekend with Kim but I decided to go back to the US a little early so I will be back by the end of the week! I cannot believe how close that is!!

SEE you all so soon!