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Check back later this week for photos from my European adventure!

Barcelona for One More Day

I can't believe how fast this term, and my Eurotrip, have gone by! At the same time, I can't believe how much I have seen and done since I arrived here 78 days ago, my first time in Europe.  It is cool to have Nancy in Barcelona today, and I've enjoyed being able to be able to show her my life from the past 10 weeks. We walked around this afternoon, just like Amparo took me around the city on my first day here. Wow. Lots of mixed emotions.

Home tomorrow!

I'm going to miss my host mom, Amparo. I cannot thank her enough for making feel at home for the past 10 weeks.

Last day in Rome

Today we saw the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine, and the Pantheon. We took one awesome guided tour, one pretty boring guided tour, learned a lot of Roman history, walked along the river, took a photo with some gladiators, ate Italian pizza and gelato, made some friends from Tennessee, and got directions to the airport for tomorrow morning.

Back to Barcelona in the A.M.!

Packed Day in Rome

Today in Rome we had a very full day. We visited:

1. The Vatican Museum which includes the Sistine Chapel
2. The Vatican
3. Castell de Sant Angelo
4. Piazza del Popolo
5. The Spanish Steps
6. The Trevi Fountain

I'm wiped out. Going to bed now. More touristy things to do tomorrow on the last real day of our Eurotrip!

Rome

Nancy and I made it to Rome this afternoon after a 3-hour train ride through beautiful Italian countryside. After checking in to our hotel, we walked around and came across a massive old church and all the roads around it were blocked off. Turns out there was a procession from the Vatican where the pope had given a special corpus christi day mass to this church we found. We ended up standing there for more than 2 hours, saw a million nuns go by, and then we saw the pope! He gave a blessing in Latin or Italian. Very cool to see!

Florence!

Ciao! We're in Florence, Italy. Yesterday we saw the Duomo, the fake statue of the David, the Ponto Vecchio, the Pitti palace and the Boboli gardens. We ate pizza, pasta, and gelato, we're doing it all! Today we went on a day trip to Pisa with some other American kids we met at our hostel,and we took about a million photos in front of the leaning tower. It's about an hour from Florence on the train. When we got back to Florence, nancy and I hiked 413 steps up to the top of the bell tower next to the Duomo and we could see the entire city and all the way to the mountains in every direction. I'll have lots of photos when I get home. Now off to dinner! Tomorrow afternoon, we're headed to Rome on the train!

Bonjour from Nice!

After meeting Nancy in Lyon, France, on Friday afternoon, we spent the afternoon touring and catching up. Lyon is beautiful and it was fun to hear French. I was surprised that I was able to recall a little bit of French from high school.

 Yesterday, we took a train from Lyon to Nice, France, which is on the coast of the Meditteranean sea. We spent the rest of the day yesterday exploring the city and wandering around. Back at our hostel, we had dinner with some fun people from Scotland who were visiting for a long weekend. This is what I love about hostels, everyone you meet is super friendly and has stories to share. This particular hostel is awesome because there is a huge common room and there are tons of people hanging out at night.

 Today, we walked around Old Nice, which had colorful buildings and narrow streets. We were walking along an outdoor fruit market and realized we could see the beach in the distance. Then we went through an arch between buildings and it opened up to show miles and miles of coastline. Absolutely beautiful.

 In the afternoon, we walked up to a famous viewpoint over the port, then we took a bus to Ville Franche, which is a cute little beach town about 15 minutes outside of Nice. We spend a while soaking up the sun and swimming before walking through a castle overlooking the sea and catching a bus back. Now we're having dinner at the hostel and tomorrow morning we're taking a train to Florence, Italy!