Grazie e Ciao!

Ciao!

This is the final time that we will be greeting you on the blog. We were a bit delayed in writing this, but we decided to finish off the blog with a series of "Top 5" lists from our trip (stay tuned til the end for a heartfelt thank you as well). It was very difficult to narrow them down because we had many great adventures! Just a note: the lists are generally in chronological order rather than ranked in order of importance. Enjoy!

Top 5 Adventures

1. Church hopping
2. Canonization mass/Vatican weekend
3. Assisi
4. Last day in Rome at the Vatican - climbing dome and Latin mass
5. Venice- gondola ride

Top 5 Mishaps

1. Kelsey starting the towel on fire
2. Kelsey throwing up on her birthday (from the heat, not alcohol, sorry to disappoint)
3. Booking a train for 5:45 am at 1:00 am
4. Train- ending up in Pescara (when we meant to return to Rome and got on the wrong train, about 2 hours in the wrong direction, oops)
5. Allison buying 10 euro worth of olives (we should have learned how to say "no more" in Italian)

Top 5 Churches

1. Santa Maria Regina Pacis, with the little adoration chapel attached (Rome)
2. St. Peter’s Basilica (Rome)
3. Basilica di Santa Casa (Loreto)
4. Eremo della Carceri (Assisi)
5. San Miniato al Monte (Florence)

Top 5 Quotes

1. Kelsey: “It's good, just not the alcohol. If they didn't put alcohol in it, it'd be great!"
2. Allison: “You know, I always think that I’m prepared for the things that come out of your mouth, but I never quite am.”
3. Kelsey: “I’m doing pretty well if I’ve been here a whole week and only set one thing on fire!”
4. Orientation lady: "Italians know how to drink and space it out to have the fun the entire evening. The only people who get drunk in Italy are Americans and the homeless.”
5. Student:“I haven’t written an essay for class in a long time…”

Professor Caridi: “That sounds like a personal problem to me.”

Top 5 Reasons We Can't Move to Rome

1. So. Many. Stairs.
2. Big city with crazy drivers, unreliable public transportation, and crowded buses
3. Too long to get the check at restaurants and not being able to take leftovers
4. Shops closed in the middle of the day
5. Smokers. Everywhere.

Top 5 Things We Liked Better About Rome

1. Even prices/metric system
2. Churches/Momma Mary on every corner
3. Fresh fruit/food/mozzarella
4. Palm trees
5. Beautiful country landscape

Top 5 Things We Missed

1. Family and friends
2. People who smile and greet you
3. Large bodies of water
4. Things that should be free, like shopping bags, bathrooms, and water at restaurants
5. Normal food things, like Mom’s cooking, eggs by the dozen, and cheddar cheese

Top 5 Photos (Plus 2 Bonus Panoramas)

Allison's first plane ride

Canonization mass

Arriving in Assisi

Food fight while waiting for our train to Venice

Venice gondola ride

Bonus:

Colosseum

St. Peter's Square (taken from the top of the dome)

We hope you have enjoyed keeping up with our blog and we appreciate all you who took the time to put up with our crazy personalities, silly pictures, and sassy remarks. We were very excited to be able to share our incredible, exciting, funny, and sometimes slightly embarrassing adventures with you. This has truly been the trip of a lifetime, and it allowed us to create many lasting memories. Thank you to all of those who have helped us along the way and assisted us throughout this journey, particularly through your prayers. We could not have braved the difficulties without you, and we are extremely thankful to be surrounded with such loving people. We also thank those of you who sent us encouraging or silly messages or who took time to Skype us. Those small acts of kindness did not go unnoticed, and it was usually exactly what we needed. It was a bit terrifying to get on a plane and head across the ocean away from all of those we know and love, but it was so reassuring to know that there were an abundance of you supporting us with your prayers. After visiting 7 Italian cities, hopping 70 churches, and spending a whopping 871 hours together, we can say without a doubt that this trip has most certainly been a success!

Con amore,

Allison and Kelsey

Home at Last

lunedi, 28 giugno 2016

We finally made it home! It was a very, very long day, but we made it!

We were supposed to get up at 6:45 Italy time, but Kelsey and I were both awake a while before our alarms even went off. We got ready and took the bus to the airport near Venice. Check in went smoothly and we waited a while until boarding the plane. Meanwhile, we entertained ourselves, by making some nice little tags.

Are we twinning enough today?

The flight from Venice to Toronto was quite uneventful, which was good. We left at 11:30 Italy time and arrived at 3:00 in Toronto (9:00 for us). It was nice not having to fly through the night again as I struggled to sleep on the plane last time.

Trying to take a picture and I started laughing!!

Our next flight didn't leave until 7:00, which to our bodies was 1:00 in the morning, so we were quite tired by the time we were able to board. Fortunately, it was a quick flight to Sarnia, where we were given a warm welcome by Kelsey's very excited parents! They were kind enough to save my parents some driving and drop me off near Flint, where Kelsey and I had to go our separate ways. After spending 871 hours together, it was strange to actually be apart.

Our little plane to Sarnia

Once I was in the car with my parents heading up to Alpena, the logical thing to do probably would have been to sleep, considering how late it was for me. However, I ended up staying up the whole ride home and talking to them (though the last half hour or so, I was struggling to stay awake). We arrived home around 1am, so it was 7am for me. After having been awake for 25 hours straight, I was certainly glad to get to bed!

Felice di essere a casa,

Allison and Kelsey

Finishing Strong

domenica, 24 giugno 2016

Today was our last full day in Italy! We decided to stay in Venice instead of our previous ideas of Milan and Padua because we were too done with trains to take another trip. Besides, Venice has been calm and peaceful with a small-town feel due to the absence of cars.

We arose to take a bus to the actual islands and hit the 10:30 mass at Basilica dei Frari This was the church that we would have had to pay to get into yesterday, but mass got us in free today! Best bang for your buck right there.

Basilica dei Frari

After mass, Allison and I were trying to scout out people to split a gondola ride with so we didn't become broke as quickly, but weren't having any luck. Just as I was finishing a prayer for God to send someone, this cute family of 3 showed up!! They lived in Rome, and the man was a Taxi driver. Despite the language barrier, we were actually able to hold a somewhat decent conversation. They were super nice people! The gondola ride in itself was pretty sweet. Floating through the 'streets' of Venice was quite lovely and calming. We stayed mostly on the smaller streets but took a short adventure to the Grand Canal. Allison really loved the ride. She's so used to being surrounded by water that she was right back in her natural habitat. I don't think she stopping smiling the entire time! Happy Allison.

After the ride, we ate some delicious lunch!

Carbonara round 3 for Allison

Then we went adventuring to find Santa Maria della Salute but it was still closed for the afternoon, so I watched Allison watch all the boats on the water and enjoy the elements.

Back to the church!! We got to see it and it was pretty. We stayed there to pray for a bit, then we headed back to San Marco to see how long the line was to get in. It was too long, so we got our feet wet going through the Holy Door (the water level is rising in Venice and there are some problems), looked around some more, said hi to Jesus, and left. We visited San Nicola di Tolentino and then ate some food. After that, we rode our bus back and packed in anticipation of returning home! Allison was very happy that we had a lot of peach drink to finish before tomorrow. It was a successful last day in Italy!

Santa Maria della Salute

Piazza of the church

Trying not to die from the heat

How traffic jams happen in Venice

San Marco

Because Allison's mom requested more photos with us in them

San Nicola di Tolentino

Dinner!!

Happiness

It's the little things in life

Acqua acqua ovunque,

Kelsey and Allison

Exploring Venice

sabato, 28 giugno 2016

People aren't kidding when they talk about Venice! There certainly is a lot of water! It was so neat exploring Venice. It had a much different atmosphere than Rome, which was appreciated by us small town girls. Something about hearing the sound of a boat motor and the splashing of water seemed to just carry me back home...until I remembered that everyone around me was speaking Italian, then it seemed a bit less familiar. Nonetheless, Venice has an incredible charm to it!

Wonderful Venezia!

Quickly stumbled upon this church, San Rocco

When we arrived, we spent some time exploring Venice itself, then stopped for some pizza and gelato for lunch. We found a few churches along the way as we headed over to see the cathedral, San Marco.

Pizza!

Gelato! Could we be any more touristy?

Haha, we just found this funny after my olive incident ;)

Fruit boat!

Found the Grand Canal!

Nice try Venice, but a little wimpy after the columns and obelisks in Rome

Gondolas!

San Salvador

San Zulian

San Marco!

We also visited a few other churches, including Santo Stefano and San Giacomo dall'Orio, which we don't have photos of. After visiting San Marco, we went over to see more of the water, then we went to find the Rialto Bridge. Unfortunately, they seemed to be doing some work on it, so it was difficult to get a good picture. On the bright side, we stopped at a fruit stand and bought a piece of coconut, so we were able to satisfy Kelsey's curiosity about it. 

Crossing the Rialto bridge

What white teeth you have!

On our way back to catch the bus to the hotel, we got dinner and stopped at a grocery store to buy a few things to eat for breakfast in the hotel and also got some peach drink and half of a watermelon as a treat for ourselves!

Dinner!

Little bottle of pear juice!

Once we got back, eating the watermelon was quite a spectacle as we only had a plastic fork and knife to try to eat it. We were determined though, and managed to enjoy it successfully. It was a delicious snack and evening entertainment for just 96 cents!

Well, somehow we managed!

Essere pronti a improvvisare,

Allison and Kelsey