M A T A T A T A M

Taking a break from my overly busy school work, last weekend I had the distinct privilege to travel to the capital of the Czech Republic…Prague! Both temperature wise and in terms of appeal, I found Prague to be much cooler than Rome. It was certainly much cleaner and the air just seemed a lot fresher.

After arriving at the airport and taking a tram into the city, I was shocked to see quite a few KFC’s every once in a while. Even better yet, at least if you’re a girl in my group, they had Starbucks there. There is no Starbucks in Italy that I have found, but they have the best authentic coffee houses in the world here so it’s all good. But like I said, the girls went bat-poo crazy.

The architecture there reminds me a lot of old-style German village - of course that opinion is based solely on Epcot Center so that should be taken with a grain of salt. Not to say that it wasn’t beautiful because it was a very quaint feeling in this urban environment. Overlooking the whole city is St. Vitus’s Cathedral. But I’ll talk about that next time as it’ll fill an entire post.

Crossing the Charles Bridge takes you to another part of the city full of museums, shopping (very expensive clothes here), and some of the best food I’ve had in Europe. Roast duck, potato pancakes, weiners, beef…omg. (Little known fact about Italy, most of the food here is vegetarian, not much meat.) So these meat platters were like a gift from the heavens, it was a welcome change to pizza and pasta.

Even the McDonalds here had different types of sandwiches than in America. I ordered what I thought was a deluxe cheeseburger. It ended up being two sausage patties, lettuce, cheese, and tomato on a sesame seed bun. It was amazing. Plus they had breakfast at their Mickey D’s - once again something Rome lacks - jeepers creepers.

I’ll end part one with a story of our group dinner the first night. Our professor made the mistake of allowing us to order whatever we wanted. Being college kids, we went crazy. We all got big meat platters, sides of green beans, 3 rounds of Czech beer, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was a mighty feast and was ultimately my favorite meal in Europe so far - hands down. Needless to say, after she got the bill, she announced we had to buy our own food for now on haha!

Next time I’ll take you to my favorite church in all of Italy - St. Vitus’s Cathedral! Tomorrow I’m taking a daytrip to Florence so look forward to that in the future sometime as well. Man I’m getting really behind on blog posts. Golly.

Last weekend I went to three ‘famous’ Italian cities. The one I spent the most time in, and was overall the nicest was Sorrento. Of course it is a resort town, so it better be nice.

Being a sea-town built into the coast, it provides a picturesque setting similar to the Amalfi coast, without having to find separate transportation there. Sorrento is literally a 30 minute train from Naples, which is a 2 hour train from Rome. And those together only cost about 15 euro each way - so it’s economical too.

So what can you do in Sorrento? Well, there’s a few cool churches and sites to see, but like I said, this is a resort town on the coast. Sorrento is also famous for limoncello. What’s that? It’s a delicious lemon-liquor. So go to the beach and relax, later eat at one of their many excellent restaurants. Then finish the even with some beverages.

Overall, it’s just a great little town if you need a break from the sometimes overwhelming (& just plain dirty) Rome. It’s a completely different experience. It’s just quiet & peaceful.

A Word on Hostels: 

This was my first time ever using a hostel. My first night, we stayed in these little, nasty cabins way out in the woods about a mile out of town. It sucked, and these German kids were throwing a massive party right outside so it was quite noisy - even though they did give me some free lemoncello haha. The second night we moved to an actual ‘hostel’ on the exact opposite side of town. It was nice, but the Australian girls who were supposed to be in our room never came home that night. Turns out they disappeared with the boat skipper from this place and no one heard from them since. Kind of like a movie, so ladies, be smart when traveling, gosh. What are you retarded?

Anyways, I’m staying in hotels for now on. I just love personal space too much and have issues with sleeping in places I don’t feel safe and comfortable.

Next time, I’ll talk about Pompei and my thoughts on the volcano-destroyed town.