Guest Appearance in Florence: Day One and Two

This past week from November 7th to the 11th my Mom took her first trip over to Europe since 1998 to come visit me in Florence. Accompanying my mom for the journey was her college roommate Lynn and her daughter Tricia who are like family to me. 

They couldn't have picked a more perfect time to come! As in love as I am with studying abroad and living in Italy going 4 months without seeing or really being able to call your family is never easy. In addition you will always have your days where your frustrated with Europe, everyone, and everything. For example having a shower so small that you cannot move and the curtain sticks to you when you do or as stupid as this sounds not understanding why you can't find chocolate chip cookies anywhere. Hey nobody can stay in honeymoon phase 24/7. Having my mom and close friends here was exactly what I needed not to mention so much fun!! 

The first day everyone arrived I had class till 3:30. I practically ran out of my class when it was over to meet up with mom, Lynn and Tricia so we could start exploring. I took them all to my favorite sandwich shop and we headed up to the Piazza Michelangelo (my favorite spot in florence) to watch the sunset. Piazza Michelangelo is beautiful and has the most incredible view of the city. We enjoyed the sunset and decided to sit at the cafe up there and drink some wine and snack. The jet lag and exhaustion was evident in everyones faces. My mom nodded off a few times at the cafe (sorry mom, had to share).

When we had finished up we all decided that everyone needed a nice Italian dinner for the first night. We stopped at a place I have been to before and has amazing food! Everyone was very satisfied by the food and wine, which made me feel very Florence savvy for picking a good restaurant for day one. It Italy 99.9% of the time you get a free Lemon Cello shot after your meal. So everyone got the lovely experience of chocking down a nice Lemon Cello shot after the meal. We were all stuffed but how could you get through your first day in Italy without gelato?! YOU CAN'T! So I took them over to a gelato stand and everyone got a nice big scoop! From there we walked back to the hotel they were staying at and passed out. Lucky me I also got to escape my far from sanitary apartment and sleep in a hotel for a few days! 

The second day of the trip was greeted by a lovely breakfast.Everyone knows I love a good breakfast, if you have read any of my other posts. The hotel had such a good continental breakfast! I think all of us can agree that the fruit salad and chocolate croissants were our absolute favorite! From there we had to speed out and catch a cab to get to our Tuscan wine tour. I'll take a second to tell you all how Italians are the worlds craziest drivers! Sorry NYC taxi drivers...someones got you beat!  To them there is no such thing as stopping at a stop sign, not even really slowing down. It's more of a quick glance, speed up and beat the car going in the opposite direction. They have to dodge bikes, vesbas, motorcycles, pedestrians, and of course other cars constantly. I think driving here is more of a science than a skill. 

Anyways, of course we got to the tour on time! It began with an overview of wine making and our first experience of the correct way to taste wine. After that we got placed into vans to start the tour. We got put in a van with 4 women who work for Welches. They were a fun group and right off the bat we got deemed as "the chatty car." We stopped off at Piazza Michelangelo on the way so we got to experience the Piazza in the morning. We were then taken to a vineyard where they make wine and olive oil. We got to see the process of making olive oil and I died. I LOVE olive oil and if anything living in Italy has only made my love grow into an obsession. I use it everyday with pretty much every meal. The Olive oil smelled so good!! We were given a glass of red wine to walk around with as we toured the olive oil making and the wine cellar. We were taken inside where in the course of about an hour we were given about 6 glasses of different red wines to try. We also were given fresh olive oil and bread. By the end of the hour everyone was feeling really good. Everyone was chatting and we met two groups of really nice Australians (seriously Australians are the greatest!). We also met a professional unicycle hockey player, yes that is a real sport! I won't get into that but everyone should take the chance to go goggle that! 

We loaded back into the vans to bond some more with the Welches workers. We were taken to another vineyard where we were given another tour of where they make the wine and the wine cellars. We learned so much about the process and what makes a good wine. We were then brought inside for more wine tasting and lunch. They had us try another 4 wines and gave us an AMAZING pasta lunch. The sauce was to die for! Nothing like a good, fresh, homemade Italian meal. Afterwards two of the Australians convinced Tricia and I to try a shot of Grappa. OMG grappa is an experience to say the least...it's pretty gross! This was the last stop on the wine tour and from there they brought us back to Florence. 

When we got back to Florence we walked over the Ponte Vecchio and I dragged everyone over to get a gelato at Grom. Grom gelato is so so soooo good! They have a Grom specialty so we all split some of that and also a dark chocolate. We were exhausted and went back to the hotel to pass out for a few hours before going out to dinner. 

When we woke up I took everyone over to another restaurant that I am obsessed with Osteria Il Gatto E la Volpe translated into English as "the cat and the wolf." Here we all enjoyed another perfect Italian meal. I finally got to try my favorite meal penna alla vodka in Italian. Again it was another one of the best meals I have gotten in Italy. Again everyone was exhausted from the days activities so we went straight back to the hotel after dinner to get some sleep. 

An Unforgettable Venice Trip

I have always dreamed about riding in a gondola and Venice has been on my bucket list for quite some time. So we finally used a free weekend to take a trip to Venice. We took a bus there through a tour group called Florence for Fun, which we basically do every trip through. We had intentions of not doing Venice through a group but train tickets were about the same price as going with the tour which included a water taxi ride and tour guide. The trip started out with a three hour bus ride from Florence to Venice. From the bus we took a quick train ride and hopped right on a private water taxi tour. Right off the bat we knew this trip was going to be different, and not just because we were going to a city whose streets are filled with water, but because of the new tour guide Florence for Fun had acquired for the trip...

Meet Frank...or so we think his name is Frank it may have been Francesco......

Before I tell you about Frank let me give you some background on Florence for Fun. Florence for Fun is a tour group pretty much run by interns that have just graduated college. All of their trips are pretty laid back and the activities they plan for the trip always include free time and are up to your desecration whether or not you'd like to participate. 

Frank had a different way of running things that included keeping everything to a precise schedule and keeping the entire group (which included a full bus load of people) completely together. Frank even allocated time for what he called "pee pee breaks." That kept me laughing all day! The way he said pee-pee breaks was hilarious! Now Frank is a very smart man, he's italian and has been teaching for years! But anyways now that you've met Frank let us continue.... 

It was 13 people to a water taxi so we had to wait for everyone to get off. During this time people took "pee pee breaks" which Frank was not happy about since he had not called for a PEE PEE BREAK! When everyone had finally gotten off and together all 40 of us headed over to Piazza San Marco. It wasn't a far walk, but the streets of Venice are very small and confusing, then add another 5 billion tourist in and it's not the easiest thing in the world to stay completely together. The walk took about 8 minutes tops and by the time we had gotten to the point in the Piazza that Frank wanted to point out we had lost a good 15 people from the group. This got Frank furious because "he was a very impatient man" as he stated. So we waited and waited and people called and called trying to find the others. This took a while. Finally everyone was back together and Frank herded us all to see a glass blowing demonstration. This time Frank was sure to keep full tabs on the group!

The glass blowing demonstration was amazing! We watched a glass blowing professional make a vase and a stallion in minutes. The way he quickly maneuvered the glass into the shapes he wanted was unreal. This is him making the Stallion....

The glass demonstration went so quickly! It was about a 10 minute long presentation and then we were hustled into the glass blowing gift shop where a man showed us all the different glass pieces you could buy and offered special student prices...instead of a $350 glass vase you could get it for the special price of $250...I don't think they understood that the majority of the people on the tour are college student and therefore don't have the money to drop $250 on a vase. After that the tour was done and we were sent off for a quick free time to get lunch. 

Like I had said the streets of Venice are very confusing and we didn't want to get lost and get Frank mad again so we tried to get lunch in a relatively familiar area close to the next meeting spot. We walked down a street full of restaurants searching for a reasonably priced meal in a tourist area..sounds like an oxymoron! We settled on a place that said "No cover charge" and that had soup because we were all pretty cold. On a side note of course I had dressed completely inappropriately for Venice and had worn a tank top maxi dress, jean jacket, scarf, and ohh yeah sandals....on an overcast, 60 degree day in Venice you can imagine that I was freezing all day. We sat down to eat and right off the bat the servers were pretty rude and seemed annoyed to be even taking our order, but we stayed anyways! As Paige (one of the girls we came with) would describe it our meal was like "a Lean Cuisine", a very expensive Lean Cuisine that is! It was an extremely mediocre meal in which we ended up paying a pretty penny for because not only did they con us into a cover charge but we also had to pay a service fee. Apparently there was no cover charge if you ordered a select set of dishes off the menu...are you kidding. To put this in perspective I got a soup and split garlic bread with Taylor and ended up paying 15.50 Euros for my meal. ATTENTION EVERYONE: if you're ever in a touristy area run away!! Look for restaurants that are off the main streets and always ask about cover charges! Lesson learned we got pretty ripped off. On that sour note we were all a little mad but quickly sucked it up and moved on. 

We walked around for a little and then went back to the meeting point. Everyone was a bit more punctual this time and Frank was able to keep his cool together. We were then given a walking tour of the city by Frank himself. During this entire tour we were allowed no pee-pee breaks! He took us to a few spots and would stop and explain the history and we would continue. With a large group it was often hard to hear Frank because he had a low voice. During the tour we stopped and we all got the opportunity to pay 15 Euros to take a gondola ride. The boats were supposed to be groups of 5 but we snuck our 6 on one boat which made a lot of the other people on the trip mad..oh well! The gondola ride was well worth it! It was like a scene from a movie! A man in a striped blue and white shirt took us through the streets of Venice, although he didn't sing, the ride was magical! We got to experience a gondola traffic jam and ask a bunch of questions about living in Venice...they take a school boat!! Another weird detail about our gondola journey was when we passed under a bridge an Asian tour group started taking pictures of us in the gondola and some were saying beautiful ladies...so its not just the Italians who do that! Also really creepy that they were taking pictures of strangers....When the ride was over we were all in good spirits again! 

We continued on with Frank's tour stopping no where. At one point Frank said "I hate shopping and I hate tourist so I will take you this way." YOURE WITH A GROUP OF TOURISTS!! YOURE A TOUR LEADER!! Anyways this lead us to Frank taking us down a bunch of empty alleys but he did have some cool things to say about different stops! We stopped at a place where a Venetian man lived with a women he had married from Pisa. The women from Pisa missed home so he build this to remind her of home...

Place like this that he took us to were really cool because there is no way we would've found this on our own. We finally stopped and were given about 20 minutes of free time. In this time my friends all wanted to try tiramisu because Venice is known for its tiramisu. So we searched around for a place to get some. While they got that I got one of the Italian hot chocolates that are really like warm puddings...so good!!...because I hate coffee and tiramisu tastes like coffee. As soon as we were done eating is was time to go back to the meeting point and already time to go back to the bus! This was the only problem with the way the Venice tour was run, we really got no time to do an bits of our own exploring. 

We headed back to the train station to get to the bus. Our walk to the train station was pretty nice because by now it was dark in Venice which I thought made it look even beautifuler! Venice truly is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Especially since it is such a unique city! When we got back on the bus we were told that 20 minutes into the ride we would stop for a final "pee pee break!" and for some dinner. We stayed at the rest stop for 40 minutes and believe it or not the rest stop had some awesome pizza! We got back on the bus and waited and we waited...and we waited, finally Frank came on the microphone and said that there was an electrical problem with the bus and he had to call and try and get a new one. After about 40 minutes Frank told us another bus would be arriving shortly so we all got off the bus. Our friend Paige who had been sleeping got off the bus in a daze and didn't realize there was a huge step up onto the sidewalk so she feel over it and into Frank! It was the funnest thing i've witnessed! Frank was in shock and was like what are you trying to do kill me! From then on the night was hilarious as the "bus will be here shortly" statement turned into another 40 minutes of waiting. When the bus finally arrived we were ready to finally start getting home! They played the movie Love Actually on the bus which was a pretty good movie! As we neared home Frank said "we're only 15 minutes away!" We were actually about 30 minutes away but thank god we were because Frank decided to start playing his music over the microphone. He started by saying I would like to play you a great Venice love song and put on "Por Ti Volare," for anyone that doesn't know this is the song that Will Farrell sings at the end of Step Brothers. We lost it! It was so funny!!! The whole bus had been like sleeping and was quite and Frank goes on and starts playing this song! My friends and I then encouraged him to put on more music and he proceeded to put on a dance remix to "Take A Chance On Me", that was even funnier as me and my friends all sang along, I think the whole bus wanted to kill us. Then Franks phone died so he kept saying "hold on I need to recharge." He put on one last song before the ride ended which was an Italian rock song. Frank ended the trip on such a high note with those songs. In the end although we had no free time, got extremely ripped off at lunch, having the bus break down and were freezing all day, nothing could top the memories of Frank on that trip or how beautiful Venice is. If I learned anything from this trip and being abroad in general it is to never sweat the small stuff, all the bumps in the road make for some of the greatest memories! Our Venice trip will forever be truly unforgettable! 

Here are some pictures from the day.... 

My favorite picture from the day...

A Florentine Halloween

Before coming to Florence I had no idea they celebrated Halloween. To my surprise Halloween is actually a huge deal here and everyone celebrates. Just like in America, an obnoxious amount of weeks before Halloween every dollar and grocery store starts selling their Halloween stuff. The week before Halloween the facebook events of every club and bar started flooding my newsfeed and little by little even restaurants were putting up festive decorations.

All the students at KSU were pretty excited that we still would be able to dress up and go out for Halloween. On the night of Halloween we had Michael, Greg and Jaron come over to our apartment to get ready for the night and to re-celebrate Taylor's birthday (since the London version didn't go so smoothly). We made appetizers of nachos, bruschetta, and roasted potatoes....one of our more interesting approaches to a dinner. With that we had wine and managed to also find an ice cream cake! We all made the mistake of having a few glasses a wine before even starting to get ready so needless to say no ones make-up was perfect...I ended up being a mix of costumes so my end product was Lana Del Ray the fairy princess, Taylor was a unicorn, Amanda was a mouse...duh!, Olivia was a pumpkin, Jaron was a nerd, and Michael was "Twinky Mouse."

When we were finally ready to go out we headed off to our friends apartment for a Halloween pre-party. It was packed in their house!! There were so many people in there and we didn't know any of them so after about 30 minutes max we went off to pick up some more of our friends. We stopped by another friends apartment then headed off to a small bar by there. The were friends with the bar tender and it happened to be his birthday! His name was Benny so we put on Benny and the Jets and screamed the song to him until it was over. There was snacks out at the bar, which of course we were all over and we stayed there for a while putting on whatever songs we wanted because Paulina kept going behind the bar and being the DJ. We finally decided to continue our night elsewhere and went in and out of a few places to check out what was going on before finally deciding to go to the street where  a lot of the bars/clubs are.

When we got to the street it was packed! It was just like Halloween at Kent State..minus the 5 billion cops, SWAT team and paddy wagons...can't say I miss that! The streets were filled with people dressed up! It was awesome!! We decided to head into a popular American/Australian bar called the Red Garter. There we headed to the back because they have karaoke there and when is it not a good idea to do karaoke?!? So who jumped right in line to go on stage and sing One Direction? Taylor, Olivia and I once again! By the time we leave Florence I'm convinced we'll be celebrities!! Next our friend Michael and Kerry went up to sing Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. Michael knew the whole dance to the song and went all out for his karaoke rendition! It was hilarious! After watching a few more performance and hanging out we decided to head back on the streets to start going back. The streets were still flooded with people! It was as usual a long trek back, so by the time we got back to our apartment we were exhausted! Florence Halloween you will never be forgotten!

...But whats Halloween without a part 2?!?

The next day it was time to rally and get ready to go out for a second night of Halloween festivities. This time it was more low key and just a Halloween party a few doors down at our friends apartment. Once again everyone dressed up, we all repeated our costumes (except Olivia switched hers) and went over to celebrate the holiday again! We all crammed into a small kitchen and had punch and were as usual as loud as can be! Everyones costumes were hilarious! To give a run down of a few...we had Michael as Molly, Greg dressed up as Paige (one of the other students), Nikki was a ninja and decided to use a real bread knife as her sword, Jenny was Pebbles, and Paulina was a lady who just got out of the shower.  We were all still pretty exhausted from the night before and had Venice the next morning so Amanda, Olivia, Taylor, and I only stayed for a few hour. None the less it was still a great time! We have such a great group of students here and were so lucky that we all get along so well! When it started to get later we left the party and decided to try Kebabs for the first time (well Amanda had already had them before). I got a felafel Kebab and it was amazing...I get why everyone raves about the Kebabs here, there also always open so after a night out people usually hit the Kebab places. Halloween Part 2...Success!

London!!

The past week we spent 5 days in London!! London has been my favorite city so far and I don't understand why everyone told me the food was horrid there because I had some of the best meals. Heres a rundown of our days spent in London!!

Day One:
We left for London on a Tuesday. Our flight was from departed from Pisa and got us into London and at the hotel around 4:00. Upon immediate arrival to the hotel we had to rush out because we had booked tickets for a 6:30 Harry Potter tour at Warner Brother's studio! Pushed for time we realized that there was no way we were making our tour on time. Luckily a nice lady on the train let us use her phone to call the studio and warn them that there were 15 of us on our way and they allowed us to push our tour time back! We were picked up by the Harry Potter night bus and it took us over to the studio!! THE TOUR WAS AMAZING!!! It had all original props, scenes, and outfits from the movies. I can't even being to explain how intricate the tour was or how this is a must see attraction for every Harry Potter fan! I won't get into details because this blog post would go on for days but that tour was worth every pound! I even managed to find ice cream on the tour! We walked around for about 3 hours and by then the studio was closing for the night. When we got out the London weather was on par and it was pouring! We quickly hopped back on the night bus and headed back to our hotel. Next to our hotel was a gas station that had the best food! That was our saving grace that night because all the restaurants were closed and we were hungry! The hotel we stayed at was called "Thistle" in Kensington Gardens and was beautiful. By far the best place we have stayed! It was two to a room and we had our own bathroom..with a REAL shower and bathtub and they spoiled us even more because we had maid service...oh and the best part was a working tv in English!! This sounds ridiculous that I am obsessing over these simple things but it really brought back the comforts of home hahah. We turned in on the early side and enjoyed a great nights sleep.

Day Two:
We woke up around 8 to enjoy our FREE (if you study abroad as a college student you'll understand that any free meal is equivalent to winning the lotto) continental breakfast. Unlike the French and Italians who think a croissant or a baguette is an efficient breakfast,  the English love their big fatty breakfasts just like Americans! And we wonder why everyone in the world is skinner! Praise the English for this breakfast though!!! The breakfast had everything from fruit to scrambled eggs! FINALLY!!! From the hotel we headed to the Thames river for a quick tour on the boat and transfer from Embankment Pier to Bankside. From the boat we all herded to Starbucks for our favorite drinks. Side note: if you every want to find one of the KSU fashion students just head to the nearest Starbuck because someone WILL be there, which comes into great use later on in the trip. After everyone had gotten there "pumpkin spice latte" fill, which I personally think are gross, we went to take a tour of the Globe Theater. The Globe Theater was really cool because it was rebuilt years ago to look as accurately as it could to the original theater and it is still a functional theater today! Our guide went over what the theater was like in the time of Shakespeare and took us around. After the tour we headed inside to a separate part and we learned how the people used to dress in the time of the Shakespeare. Here one of the fashion design majors Michael got to model and be dressed in the women of that times attire. It was hilarious! After all our tours had commenced we were given time for a quick lunch. Around London there is a chain called Eat and it has soup, sandwiches, and salads, its almost like a Panera and they're everywhere! So we stopped in to eat...at Eat. When we were finished lunch we had to go to the Tate Modern Museum for another tour. This tour was of Modern art. We were guided around the museum where significant pieces like some of Picasso were pointed out and explained along the way. When the tour was over we walked over to go on the London Eye. When we reached the London Eye we realized how smart we were to get our tickets in advanced because the line was atrocious! Before we got on the Eye we got to watch a quick 4D movie on the London Eye experience which was really cool! The London Eye was breathtaking. It is the tallest ferris wheel in London thats located on the south bank of the river Thames to overlook the city. I am so happy we decided to see it! After the London Eye we walked across the bridge to Big Ben and to get our first London dinner, which of course had to be fish and chips! After our meal we went back to the hotel because we had plans to go out for the eve of Taylor's 21st birthday. We got ready and headed out to go to an exclusive club that a girl on our trip Cassie "had all set up." Unfortunately the club ended up being a disaster. The club was super exclusive and half of us didn't even make it in because although we were promised free bottle service and free entry none of those ended up holding true. About 7 of us got in while the others were dealing with the no heels no entry situation...ridiculous. We entered this snooty club only to find after a 20 pound entry fee and a 2 pound forced fee to check a coat that we did not fit in at all. This was no club for college students. It was a bunch of posh, business men and women who wouldn't even look at us because obviously we weren't rich business people. So after about 10 minutes we were out of that club in attempts to try and make up for a bad place on Taylor's birthday night. We all felt horrible. We headed over to another club where there was no entry fee (more our style) but it still was still very businessy. In attempts to turn the night around I immediately whipped out the birthday cake we had gotten Taylor and convinced someone to light the candles even though he told me "this is illegal." We soon found out that the area we were in was all very businessy and the people at this club were all taking out their boss and a guy they were trying to make a business deal with. So once again we just tried to make the best of it because we really couldn't get over to the more college pub area in time before things started closing down. The night ended up not being too bad. We danced funny..doing the moves like the robot and other awkward dance moves because there was really not many girls in the club either...we convinced a few business men to buy us a drinks and then pretty much ditched them hahah and by the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 3 so we passed out!

Day Three:
The next morning we enjoyed another lovely breakfast and went to the V&A museum to get a tour of fashion through the years and to tour the "Club to Catwalk" exhibition. The museum was awesome! Especially the "Club to Catwalk." It was the 1980s in London so they had all these exotic outfits and fun music and fashion shows running through the exhibit. After the museum tours a few of us went to go find lunch in the area. We came across an organic health restaurant and decided to try it out. I got the most amazing salad...I barely even know what was in it but it was so good! From there we took the tube (which is so easy to use) over to Harrods and Top Shop to do some window shopping. Harrods is just like the English version of Macy's. They have everything in there!! Including a whole section of chocolate and candy that was making me want to die. We weren't able to spend too much time in Harrods because we had to make it over to a seminar at Central Saint Martins on sustainable fashion. It was only me at Taylor at this point because majority of the group had went their separate ways right from the museum and the other to girl we were with decided to skip the seminar. Having no idea where Central Saint Martins was exactly we had to just wing it. This is where Starbucks played a key role! As soon as we walked out of the train station we went into the nearest Starbucks and what do you know about 8 KSU fashion students were in there getting drinks. From there we all found Central Saint Martins together. Saint Martins is a beautiful school and one of the best in the world for arts and fashion. We listened to a seminar on sustainable fashion and then were broken up into groups to research companies and their sustainable fashion policies. We then presented our findings and received a certificate for completing the seminar. Taylor wasn't feeling well after the seminar so while the others decided to go out to shop and get Indian food I went back with Taylor to the hotel. But of course we didn't go back without getting Chipotle first...god the addiction is so bad. England's Chipotle was perfect! Once again the comforts of home! After Chipotle we spent the night in eating junk food and watching scary movies on TV.

Day Four:
When we got up Taylor was still feeling sick so she stayed in and the rest of us went to take the tube to Cockpit Arts. Cockpit Arts is a group that helps artists, like weavers, jewelry makers, and handbag designers, make their own company and/or establish themselves. It was such a nice place, very low key and everyone in there was pleasant and happy to show us around. We got to listen to a weaver and a handbag designer talk about why they are there, what they are doing, and even show us what they were working on. It was one of my favorite tours so far and it was such a casual and simple one. After the tour we had plans to go on a walk tour to see major sight seeing points in London...we got off the tube at what we thought was the meeting place for the tour...turns out it wasn't. We realized it wasn't the right spot too late in the game to get to the actually spot so instead we decided to make up our own walking tour! With super organizer Amanda of course this was possible! We hit up Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben for the second time, took the classic "in a red telephone booth" picture, and walked around the area until it was time to go to high tea at Harvey Nichols. The high tea was also THE BEST THING EVER! We went to the top floor of Harvey Nichols and were served tea, crumpets, jam, butter, and cucumber sandwiches. It was delicious! We then got a tour of the entire store by one of the sales associates. She told us how certain things are merchandised in the store and I felt like it was extremely relevant to the merchandising majors. After tea we made our way over to Apollo Victoria Theater to see the musical Wicked! The area around the theater was really busy and the tube station we got off at for it was like Penn Station. It was my second time seeing Wicked but I loved it all the same! We were so lucky to have a musical incorporated into our trip! We were exhausted after the play so we went back to the hotel and again watched another scary movie "Halloween H2O." The movie was really dumb.

Day Five:
The last day was a free day to do whatever we wanted. We had one last delicious breakfast and headed out for the day. We went into a couple souvenir shops so we could buy post cards and then Taylor and I decided to break away from the group because we wanted to go to Kings Cross Station to see platform 9 3/4. The line was a little long to take a picture at the platform but the photographer and assistant kept the crowd entertained. After it was finally our turn we walked into the shop to see the pictures up close (even though you were allowed to take your own pictures for free). The guy in the store told Taylor and I that our picture was very unique...I guess not too many people ask to get into the cart to take the picture. Taylor ended up buying their copy of the picture because she thought it was too good not to. From there we took the tube to coventry garden and walked around. In Europe they have a store called TK Maxx...sound familiar?? It is the exact same thing as TJ Maxx in the US. I don't know why they changed the J to a K but logo and all it is the same! After walking around and window shopping we decided to head back closer to the hotel so we could try Indian food before we left. It was a bit early to be eating lunch but we knew we couldn't leave without trying it. We walked into an Indian restaurant that was completely empty and struggled to order food. We tried to order these dishes and the waiter was like "sooo you've never had Indian food before" and of course we said we hadn't and he told us that there is no way we could eat the meals we got without ordering rice with them...and he was right the rice made the meal! The food was absolutely delicious! I got a chickpea, spinach, tomato, onion, and spices dish. I definitely will want to eat Indian food again! Before we knew it, it was time to go back to Florence. We all got on the bus and waited, and waited, and waited...turns out we were missing 3 students. Our teachers who brought us there were so mad. We were seconds away from leaving without them when they finally showed up. We continued on to the airport and soon it was time to board. We all board the plane then realize once again there was a different 4 students missing...once again my teacher was like are you kidding..and we had to page them to the flight...my goodness! We arrived safely home and basically went straight to sleep and slept for the whole next day.

Harry Potter Tour

Globe Theater 

View from top of Tate Modern Art Museum 

London Eye

Big Ben

V&A Museum

Harrods 

Central Saint Martin

Buckingham Palace

Westminster Abbey 

High Tea and Tour at Harvey Nichols

Wicked

Platform 9 3/4

Coventry Gardens

Indian Food