Northern Loop: 2 of 2

So this bus ride. From Berlin to Amsterdam = terrible. In Berlin, I was supposed to go to the doctor's but I accidentally fell asleep and woke up too late to go to the doctor's office so I had to miss it. That means that I was just as sick on the bus all the way to Amsterdam, and this was an 8 hour drive! So after tossing and turning for about, oh, I don't know, around 7 hours and 59 minutes, we arrived in Amsterdam at the Flying Pig Inn Uptown. Apparently, this is the hostel where everyone stays when coming to Amsterdam. The staircases?? Soooo small!!! My luggage almost didn't fit going up the staircase and of course I was about 3 flights up so that made it a whole lot worse....I shared a room with 9 other people and the room wasnt' bad. Carpeting, a sink in the room, comfy beds, so not bad. Everyone from our group was getting ready to go out because you know, it's Amsterdam. And you know what people do in Amsterdam. I, on the other hand was having trouble breathing so lucky me had to make the decision to go to a doctor or go out. Unfortunately, I made the right decision, and missed going out and went to the hospital. After sitting in the hospital waiting room and waiting for the doctor for 5-6 hours, I found out nothing. They told me they had no idea what I had but that my throat was swollen. (Thank you doctors!! I see that education of yours is coming in handy) They gave me some sort of pill and luckily later on, my throat became better and I could actually have a decent day. So after getting back around 1:30, my room smelled of weed (wonder why) and I was so tired so I just went to bed.
The next morning we got up to take another NewAmsterdam tour. I loved our tour guide; he was so funny and really nice. He took us all over Amsterdam. We went to see Anne Franks house from the outside, all of the canals, the Red Light District (I'll go back to that one), churches, clocktowers, the I AMSTERDAM sign (the fake one, yes, there's 2), the flower market, and so much more.





So, the Red Light District. What to say about the Red Light District. It was interesting. We walked down this street and I look to my right and what's there? A woman. In very little lingere. Trying to get people to come inside her window. So this is how it works apparently: You walk up to the windows and look at the girls (like window shopping) and if you want to do something with that sed person you go up to the door and if the girl or boy likes you enough, they will let you inside the door. Then, once you get inside, you tell them what you want and they give you a price. Anything extra that you want such as: Them to scream, to pretend they're enjoying themselves, to take off clothes...costs extra money. I guess if you're a pretty girl that you make a lot of money. After the tourguide explained that, he showed us a boob. Yes, I said boob. No, not a real one (don't worry guys) It was in the ground to signify that this was the Red Light District and what it represented. And if you're wondering, all of this is legal and done in not a horrific way at all. The Red Light district is actually really beautiful and has a lot of nice stores and restaurants and is located almost on a canal. When the tour finished, we stopped in front of the Anne Frank house which I was dying to go into before I left Amsterdam. But that day I was meeting my friend Sjors (George), who I met in Rome in my hostel and he lives in Holland so perfect time to meet him right? So when I was on line for the Anne Frank house he told me he arrived so I got out of line and decided to meet him at this famous pancake house. It was so good to see him because I knew that after Rome, I probably would never see him again because we're across the world from each other. We sat down in the restaurant and I ordered a chocolate chip pancake thinking it would come out like the ones in the states. But we're in Amsterdam, so of course that doesn't happen. A couple of minutes later, this woman comes out with this massive pancake, like a crepe with chocolate filled all in it and it was delicious. The whole time we just continued to talk and talk and talk and it was so much fun to catch up with him.
After I finished my pancake, we left and he asked me where I wanted to go and I told him to take me everywhere, and that's what he did. We walked all over Amsterdam and he showed me all of these cool spots, including a free ferry ride, a great dessert, the REAL I AMSTERDAM sign and so much more:

After walking around for about 7 hours, we decided to get dinner and he said that the Chinese was really good in Amsterdam, and as weird as I found that, I agreed for Chinese food ( but i was secretly craving it, so i didn't mind at all) And let me say, it was really good! Kind of expensive, but definitely worth it since my appetite was through the roof! When we finished dinner he decided to take me to a bar called The Three Sisters, where there is a bunch of outdoor seating and it's a beautiful area with a bunch of people and restaurants surrounding. We sat down and he bought me a beer and we continued to talk. But as the time grew faster, we had to finish up and head back to my hostel so that he could make his last train. We got really lost going back to my hostel and he was so close to missing his train but thankfully he did not.

The next day: Goodbye Amsterdam! Can you guess what comes next? Nooo, not Paris (well yes...but that's not what I mean) but 6-8 hour bus ride! Yay!!! NOT! Once again, barely sleep and tossing and turning but I was soo happy that day because we were going ot Paris. My dream since I've been a girl has been to go to Paris because I took eight years of french and it's a beautiful place full of sites and amazing people. By the time we got to Paris, it was around 1:30pm which is new for us because we usually get to a city really late so that meant that we had time to do something that day on our own. I didn't care what anyone did, I knew exactly what I wanted to do so I figured out the metro on my own and made my way to the Eiffle Tower and Champs De Lysees. It was amazing. I knew that I was going to like Paris from the first steps I took outside. On my way back to the hostel after wandering the city I decided to stop by the pub crawl meet spot to see if anything was going on. There were some people there but I decided not to pay to go on it, follow them and see if paying was even worth it, and trust me, it was not at all. I was so happy that I didn't waste my money. I wasn't to fascinated by Paris' nightlife. Maybe it was just a bad night....but the day was definitely a good one with all the sites. :)

The next day we had another tour with NewParis this time. That was a really fun tour because we got to see everything: The Champs De Lysees, Notre Dame, Arc du Triomphe, Eiffle Tower, the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, the park, churches, the Love Bridge, and the list continues. But the weather was beautiful and he told us places that we should go afterwards. So me and two girls decided to walk down the Champs De Lysees and go see the Eiffle Tower again because they hadn't seen it yet. Then we picked up crepes!!! If you are in France, you need to get crepes, especially with Nutella in them. I hate Nutella with a passion but I had to do it for the experience and it was good. The crepe itself was amazing! Afterwards we headed towards the Arc du Triomphe and it was beautiful but we couldn't go in it because some celebration was going on. After we headed back to the hostel just for a couple of minutes and then went back out to go to the Louvre because on fridays it's open until 10pm. So we went there, got in for free!! (Thanks to our student visas!!) The Louvre is HUGE! we didn't even see 1/50 of it. But we did see the Mona Lisa. If you go, it's a typical tourist move to go and see the Mona Lisa, so that's what we did.

Afterwards, we decided that we needed to go and get french onion soup. We went to three restaurants that either didn't sell it at the time or they were sold out. Finally I found a place because I went in and asked specifically if they were selling soup and if it was still being served. We waited for 10 minutes and then it came out in a big bowl and I was sooo happy to see it because I was starving! The soup was incredible! The cheese on top and just the flavor was out of this world. The two girls wanted to see the Eiffle tower at night but I already saw that so I went back to the hostel while they left. It was a long day anyhow....I needed my sleep...

So our final day of Spring Break arrived. Everybody went to Versailles because they heard it was beautiful and amazing adn I'm sure that's completely true, but like I said earlier, there were still things I wanted to see and I wasn't sure if I'd have time if I went to Versailles. So I took the metro back to the Louvre and went wandering for a lot longer seeing how much I could get done, and trust me, I got sooo lost, I probably didn't go anywhere in that museum. After being in there for about three hours, I left and headed over to the Musee D'Orsay which is the museum with the Reniors, Monets, Manets, and more. It was the museum that was full of impressionism. By far my favorite museum I've been into. I could've stared at Monets and Reniors paintings for hours. If you have a chance to ever go there, don't miss out! It's completely worth it! And thanks to my visa? FREE!!! A students favorite word. Then before I headed back to the hostel to leave, I grabbed a crepe, bought souveniers, and headed to a Starbucks because there are none in Florence and I missed them.

Around 8pm, our bus arrived and we all boarded for a very very long 15 hour bus ride back to Florence. I think we made only three stops the whole entire time, one being in Switzerland. So I guess I can say I went there too. :) Finally on sunday around 1pm, we make it back to Florence. Long trip but it felt good to be home. (temporary home I guess you could say).

So. Spring Break 2010 a success? I think i'm going to say YES!

What's to come? CORFU, GREECE TOMORROW!!!

Northern Loop 1 of 2

So I'm back! Back from my 10 day spring break in Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris!!! You probably think that these blogs are going to be very long because it's a lot of citiies and a lot of time away. However, the majority of my trips were touring the cities rather than the typical spring break of going out every night and getting very very drunk. (However, that did happen too) This blog, though, I'm going to just talk about Prague and Berlin so that you don't see teh size of this blog and immediately turn away. I know I would..


So Thursday evening, 10pm, me and my roommate arrive in the Santa Maria Novella train station to begin our journey to so many different places. Everyone there was holding suitcases and was so excited to be leaving. I ran into my friend who actually wasn't supposed to be on teh trip but decided to switch over, so that was a nice surprise. We checked in with our leaders adn then proceeded to go to the bus for our lovely 10 hour bus ride. This bus was sooo hot!!! Have they not heard of air conditioning? And can I just mention that the air conditioning was not turned on once during this whole entire bus ride. It was terrible. I attempted to sleep but it didn't go over very well. When we finally arrived in Prague, it took 2 hours longer than we had hoped. But I got off that bus with the worst throat ever. I just hoped that it would go away when I got some air conditioning. When we arrived at the Czech Inn in Prague, it was so nice! Everyone at the front desk was so friendly and then we got our room assignments. Me and my friend weren't expecting much because it was a hostel. So we recieved our key and went up, and let me tell you, it was NOTHING to what we were expecting. Us and 4 other girls shared an apartment! and I mean an apartment! 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, our own bathroom, an upstairs, and a patio! It was incredible!!! And there were normal rooms too that some of my friends got that had 8 people in a small room with a communal bathroom. Boy did I get lucky. See for yourself:

After we all check in, we meet downstairs for brunch, which was INCREDIBLE!!! and then we proceeded to go on a tour with a guide from a company called NewEurope. They are really fun and really energetic. Our tour guide was from the US and just moved to Prague to do this job and he says he loooves it. I don't blame him though. So for the next couple of hours he shows us all around Prague. We see the infamous clocktower. This clocktower has about 12 different clocks and people gather around this clock on the hour such so they can see the peopls on the clock move and a fake bird to make a sound that sounds like he's dying. Sounds awesome right? Then we continued on and he stopped and told us all about the history of Prague and how the famous death penalty there was throwing people out of windows and if that wasn't painful enough, they would have two guys at the bottom of the building holding what were like pitchforks, you know, just to finish the guy off. After we saw a beautiful church and he talked about cubism, which was a little weird but he made it funny. After we went to Bohemia Bagels which is a famous bagel shop in Prague and we all got food and it was delicious! then we continued walking and saw what used to be the jewish ghetto. For many people, they found it so interesting, and it really was. I got really sad when I saw it because they started talking about the Holocaust and showed us a museum which we didn't go into and was closed the next day so I never went. After we saw a building where Mozart performed and I found that very cool and then finally the tour ended at the Charles Bridge. Here are some of the sights I saw :D

Later on that night we got the chance to go on the ClockTower Pub Crawl. This is one of the most famous pub crawls you can go on. So of course me and everyone else in our travel group gets ready to go out. The meeting place was at Bohemia Bagels again because at night it turns into a bar. The way the pub crawl worked was as usual, they take you to four bars and one nightclub with free admission for about 16 Euros. But the difference about this one was at Bohemia Bagels, for an hour and a half it was free beer and shots. and the beers kept coming. They gave your table a liter of beer and cups and then if your liter ran out you got another one and that just continued for an hour and a half straight. It was so much fun and I met a lot of people. Then, on the way home, I left with a few people, including a tour leader, and there was a sausage stand outside still open in the wee hours of the night so clearly I had to grab one to try Prague's food. The sausage was huge and it was the most delicious thing. Even though it didn't settle well with me in the morning, I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all. If you ever go to Prague and your a teenager with nothing to do and want to meet people; do the Clocktower Pub Crawl.

The next morning we all got up early to go and walk up this massive hill to see a viewpoint that looks like a fake eiffle tower. I did not go up because I didn't have my passport. TIP!!! bring your student visa everywhere!!! It gets you major discounts on museums and most of the time free!!! So me and my friend waited for everyone to come down and then we continued on to go and see this huge castle and church that, on that specific day, Prince William was coming there to have some sort of meeting. I didnt' see him but I did think the idea of him being there was cool. After that was done, my and my friend did our own thing and headed towards the Lennon Wall which was awesome!!! and then went over the Charles Bridge which is like a copy of the Ponte Vecchio. Then on our way back, we picked up our souveniers and a gyro which was sooo good!!! Then 16 miles later headed back to the hostel and decided not to go out again that night because we were still so tired from the night before. However, we DID decide to go out to dinner because we head that the beef goulash and bread dumpling are a delecacy in Prague so we headed out to a restaurant called U Bulina and ordered just that. The serving size was massive and it was DELICIOUS! That made me fall in love with Prague just a little bit more <3

9AM Sunday - We head out. Goodbye Prague. 5 hour bus ride to Berlin, Germany!! Once again, we arrive about 2 or 3 hours late meaning that our free tiem there just got cut down a lot. So when we get there, me and my roommates drop our bags and head straight out to see the Jewish Museum. After walking for about forty minutes and getting kind of lost, we arrived at the museum. I love reading about the Holocaust and that's what half of the museum was so tat really fascinated me. The other half was more on the history of the jews and just facts so it kind of bored me. After that, it was starting to get dark but we were all starving and the hostel there was awful. They couldn't tell us anything. So a bunch of us started walking and found this restaurant called Maximilians. It was pure German food and I got german meatballs with carrots and mashed potatoes. The serving was massive!! and the whole thing was incredible especially the dessert which was warm apple strudel with homemade ice cream and whipped cream.

The next morning was awful. I woke up incredibly sick. I couldn't breathe at all and I come to find out that my tonsils are triple in size and that I can't breathe or swallow out of one side of my mouth. I had no idea why this happened. I don't have allergies and I wasn't eating anything weird. But I just hoped it was because the air was dry so I continued and went on the tour that was given by, you guessed it...NewBerlin. He took us around in pretty much a huge circle. We started off looking at the most expensive hotel in all of Europe that is 15,500 Euros a night which is 21,000$ Apparently that comes with three butlers and pretty much anything you would like. For that kind of money, I wouldn't ask for anything less. He also told us that, that exact hotel was thh one with the infamous scene of Michael Jackson holding a baby out the window. That's the point when we all started taking pictures. (typical tourists right?). Then we went on to see a famous gate that opened up West and East Berlin as well as a Holocaust Memorial. It was so cool because it looked like a maze and you can get lost in it and it's supposed to be a design where people should percieve the design as something different. After, we went to where Hitler's underground rooms were and then he showed us the exact spot where he burned. It's a sewer. Not even lying. As we continued walking we headed to the Berlin Wall. Trust me....not that exciting. It actually looks like garbage. Very unhappy with it. Walking around some more, we saw a famous church that was beautiful and the river.

After the tour was over, me and two of my friends decided that we have to go and try some of their famous currywurst. It's a sausage served with ketchup and curry. So we go searching for this place but since we didn't know how to use the trians we decided to go somewhere else and eat it. It was very strange but I liked it. The curry was very overpowering but it could have been just the place because I heard from a bunch of other people that it was amazing. After we finished that I had to go home because I was not feeling good at all so I walked back to my hostel to take a nap. It was really upsetting that I was so sick. I decided to get up and go to the group dinner since it was our last night although I was sick. We go to this place and I get pork's knuckle and it was HUGE! it was like four of my fists put together. Of course I ate the majority of it with the potatoes it came with. Then they served us soft pretzels to eat with it, instead of a bread basket (best idea EVER!) For dessert I shared an apple strudel with my friend and after that I couldnt' breathe anymore because I was so full. Although I wasn't a huge fan of Berlin to begin with, the meals definitely made up for it.

After dinner was time for bed and then in the morning........Amsterdam and then Paris!!!! (mentioned in my next blog! :D)

Whoever Thought that Students Could Study While Being Abroad is Completely Delusional

So not only was my weekend full of excitement because of the arrival of my parents and sister, but my friends from school back home came for a visit as well. But not only that, but my weekend was full of complete and utter disaster. Lets begin with Saturday shall we? In the morning, me, my roommate, and my family went to the Uffizi Gallery (Finally!) It was really cool. However, I've never seen so many Jesus' in my life! It was a little crazy but I definitely had a good time in there with everyone. After, we continued to go to our favorite meal in Florence, Ganzo brunch! We got there extra early waiting for a table, got in, sat down, and stuffed our faces like usual. It was delicious again. Wasn't expecting anything less. Then my friends were supposed to arrive at my apartment at 3pm and so I went to the market with my parents and bought food so that we could cook our asparagus risotto for dinner for all of us. The nI recieved the one phone call i wished to never recieve and you guessed it, it was my friend from home. He was stuck inside of Frankfurt, Germany airport! and get this....his luggage? Nowhere to be found and it contained a camera, his mac laptop and all of his clothes and toiletries. It was horrible. Finally the other guest showed up at my apartment around 8 while the other friend showed up around 9:30.
Our plan for the night was to go out but they couldn't because they were exhausted so we decided to just go out by ourselves, me and my roommate. We of course hit up Amadeus to begin our night and see our friend Harry play the cello in this very funky band. The music was weird but we ended up having the best time dancing and singing. Then later on, we wanted to dance and go somewhere new so we decided to go to TwentyOne which we rarely go to because it costs money to check your coat and it's crowded a lot. But Saturday it wasn't. We got to check our coats for free because we knew the guy doing it and it wasn't crowded at all. While standing around the bar, I met the nicest bartender named Maurizio. I wouldn't leave the bar because I wanted to talk to him so I continuously bought drinks just to talk. And yes I did realize I couldn't just stood there and talked but it was more fun ordering drinks while talking to him. Later in the night we ran into some friends from school and we decided to stay the night in their apartment so that we could give our guests comfortable sleeping quarters after their dreadful travels.
Sunday, I decided to go to Boboli Gardens again with my parents and it was even more beautiful. We walked around for hours with the sun shining in our faces. I've decided to get a pass where I can go anytime I want so that when it's sunny out, I'm going to go there with a blanket and a book and just lay in the sun. I think it's a pretty brilliant plan. Basking in the sun while reading a good book? Can't really get much better than that. After that I went home to attempt to start studying for midterms. I can't really remember what I did the remainder of the day, but I'm pretty sure I didn't actually study on account that I didnt' do very well on that midterm.

But now we're getting back to tonight and it is my last night of studying for my dreadful midterm. Everyone thinks that I'm so lucky becuase I get no homework and I'm always traveling etc etc, and yes that is a high point in my travel abroad adventures. However, the only two major aspects of your class are your final and midterm, maybe a paper depending on the class. But these midterms, are HORRIBLE! My first midterm was on Cakes and Tarts and I've never had to think so hard about almonds in my entire life. Almonds, if you're listening.....i hate you. But I have to blame that failure partially on myself because I thought it would be easy and I definitely underestimated the difficulty that test could be.

For the remainder of the night I decided to just sit down and study for my tuesday exam because I became very frightened after that first test. Luckily, tuesday, I did a lot better on my exam that I was expected which definitely got my hopes up. After, I went to Ganzo for lunch with my roommate and got a pork terrine and then a salmon salad which were both amazing as usual. After we decided to meet up with our friends from school and the first place we went was to get our refund for one of our trips. Thankfully we got it and at the same time more good news...my friends bags? Was located!!! With all of his stuff included inside. Where was his luggage this whole time? Africa! His baggage has been more international than the kid himself. We found it quite amusing. Then we decided to walk around San Lorenzo Market for a while and look for stuff/souveniers, etc. Then we went to Grom, one of the most delicious gelato places in Florence. This is a must go to shop. It's right off the street from the Duomo on a road called Via D'Oche. It's soooo good!!! Best flavor? Crema de Grom. I don't know what's in it, but there is some sort of cookie in there somwewhere.
Later in the night, my cousin was in Florence with a bunch of her friends so she asked that I take them around the city to all the bars and clubs so that they could get a feel of the nightlife. Of course I agreed so I took them, me, my roommate, and my friends from school out. Of course starting from Amadeus, we recieved free drinks, then headed to Blob, Twice, Red Garter, then back to Twice. It was soooo much fun. We even made it to the secret bakery again! We are just that good I was even getting asked by a bunch of strangers where it was because they knew I knew where it was located. I felt special. Probably because for about 5 minutes I acutally was special. :D

Then today of course I didn't go to bed until around 3 am so I woke up around 11:15 and met my parents at 12:15 so that I could finally introduce them to Tripe!!!!! They liked it but couldnt' get over the fact that it was cow's stomach but by the end of it I know that they truly loved it as much as I do. After that we continued to walk around a little bit but I had a midterm later around 6pm so I knew I had to go back and study which is what I did around 3pm. That midterm was Italian and it actually wasn't that bad considering it was 100 questions and it took me 35-40 minutes only to complete it. After that exam, I met my family and roommate and went out to dinner at a restaurant my cousins recommended called Frencesco Vini and it was DELICIOUS! Everything from the antipasti to the primi to the amazing chocoalte mousse and tiramisu dessert was extroadinary. It was definitely a good ending to the visit from my family. Walking back to my apartment I said my final goodbyes to my family which was very sad and went on my way, back to my apartment to study for my two biggest exams, chocolate and culture. I've decided o stay up late and get up early to get in some last minute cramming (You can see how well that's going considering I'm writing in this blog right now) It is Saint Patrick's Day, I know, and I should be going out getting a green beer like everyone else in Florence but I sadly missed out on that. So unfortunatlely no pictures of a green beer and/or shot. You will just have to use your imagination. I better get A's on these midterms if I missed out on such huge parties tonight at every single club and pub in this city.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the best week ever: SPRING BREAK 2010!!!!! Tomorrow at 10pm Florence time, I leave on a 10 hour bus ride to Prague which is where our adventures will start. Then from Prague to Berlin to Amsterdam and lastly Paris before heading back to Florence. I can tell that this is going to be the single BEST spring break ever! and I can't wait! I can't wait to come back and tell you all about it! It's definitely going to be the most unbelievalbe experience of my life and I just want it to start. Only 20 hours to go! Let the countdown begin!

Say Cheese!! And Proscuitto and Balsamic Vinegar...

So it's midterms week. Hence the long wait for me to write my blog about Friday. But I will take out some time now and catch you up on my adventures from Friday to Parma and Modena.

It all started at 4am. and yes, I'm sure you just reread that sentence. I said it....4am I woke up to catch our bus and the Piazza Independanzia at 5:15 am! It was crazy! I can easily say I got 4 hours of sleep that night. It was pretty terrible. When we get on the bus, I pass out. Are you really that surprised? Our first stop? Parma!!! Land of the Cheese! When we first arrived there it was freezing outside and a woman came out and told us about the cheese factory a little bit because it's loud once we got in there. Then she comes out with this box. What's in the box?? Uniforms! Because it's a factory we had to dress up in these foot booties, lab coats and funky hats. Oh we were attracitve. Trust me. We were all the epitome of supermodels. Don't you think so? The first room that we all entered was where all the milk came in. They were placed in these large vats that were very hot and then mechanically mixed until the milk would start to cook and eventually curdle. And you all know that when milk curdles it produces cheese (for the most part). Then this man that worked there went to each one of the vats and took what look like a giant whisk and stirred it. These men that worked in this factory were so strong. Who would've thought that working in a cheese factory would make you that much stronger?

After standing in that freezing room for over a half hour watching the milk curdle and continuously being stirred, we were taken into another room. Inside this room, you could see the cheese inside the molds that produce their "wheel-shape". Our tour guide showed us the piece of fabric that they put aroudn the wet cheese after it's put into the molds which gives it that writing on the side that says Parmigiana over and over again with the date it was produced on it. They imprint it onto the cheese themself. After being shown that, we were taken into a room where there must be at least 300 cheese wheels sitting in fluid that helps enhance their flavor. They stay in there, the guide stated, for about 25 days. The wheels floating on the fluid reminded me of buoys in a swimming pool and all I really wanted to do the whole time was jump on them to see if they would hold me up but I think that may have gotten me kicked out of the factory, so I witheld. But it did look very cool and couldn't believe that cheese took this much effort. After, they took us back into that first room to show us the process of how they turn the milk into the cheese wheel. So what they did was they got what looked like
canvas nets and they would dig it down into the hot milk and pull out the curd. Then, two guys would spins it so that the curd would become a large ball of cheese. Being still hot, they then placed the cheese into these large molds, to form their wheel shape and place what looked like heavy plates on top to keep the cheese down and in the molds. They continued to do this until all of the molds were full. I actually filmed a video of them doing this whole process so watch and see exactly what I saw!!

But I would have to say that my favorite part by far was the room we went to afterwards. I call it, the Cheese Room! This is where they place the cheese after it is done being prepared, it will sit in this room for years to age. The more years that the cheese ages, the better the cheese. With my love of cheese, it was like a chocolate lover walking into Willy Wonka's Factory. See for yourself:

After the tour, we recieved free samples and it was quite delicious cheese. But what cheese isn't, right? We then continued to get onto the bus and head to the next stop also in Parma. The Proscuitto Factory! We walked in and took a quick tour of the factory and then we had a proscuitto tasting! Let me just say that the smell was VILE! Everyone in there thought they were going to throw up, including me. Just seeing all of this pig hanging around sitting there for months and months forms this smell that is like poison to your nose. But then afterwards when we got to do the tasting, and it was amazing! I ate my whole plate plus bread, plus a quarter of another plate. When meat of any kind is put in front of me? Oh, trust me, I will eat it all up. Then they brought out dessert which wasn't all that great but I was stuffed from the Proscuitto anyway. That was definitely a good lunch for me. I would eat that again anyday.

Once we left the Proscuitto Factory, we hopped on the bus for one more ride to Modena, to see the Balsamic Vinegar Factory. We were on the bus for so long during this day that I just wanted to take an 8 hour nap, but the bus rides were so short that it's impossible to get a good rest while traveling back and forth. So just imagine how tired we were.

When we got to the Balsamic Vinegar factory, a woman took us up to the second floor wher there was vinegar sitting in barrels aging. She said that a good, expensive balsamic is in the barrel for 25 years while some are in there for 12 that are really good as well but just cheaper. When she finished talking about the production process, she took us downstairs for a tasting. These were incredible! My favorite by far was the Apple Balsamic Vinegar. I wanted to just keep trying it. I think that and the white pear was everyone's favorite. Silly me forgot to bring in my wallet so I never bought any but a lot of people went home that day with bottles of balsamic vinegar. (Don't you worry though, all of these products can be bought in the US!)

After we left that factory we finally got on the bus to head back to Firenze. I think I definitely got the most sleep on that ride home. When we arrived home I knew that it was time for bed. The tours were amazing and I would definitely tell anybody to go on them because watching the process of how to make cheese, balsamic vinegar, and proscuitto was was actually very invigorating and I think it's an important trip especially when you're in Italy.

For right now I must say Buona Notte.

May the travels continue and the memories be made for a lifetime.

Ciao!