not my usual fall break...

Well, since my fall breaks are usually pretty low-key affairs where I just go home and don't do any of the work I was hoping to get done, this last fall break was quite out of the ordinary. The places visited were: Florence (3 nights), Venice (1 night), and Rome (3 nights). So yeah, when we all got back to the center today and everyone was asking about each other's fall break, one didn't hear the usual "well, I didn't do too much..."

People went to a lot of different places: some going to the UK, Prague, Amsterdam, Spain, Germany, and of course Italy. In Florence and Venice there were about 6 of us students and in Rome it was just me, Eric, and Jay. It was a ton of fun, and I won't even try to say everything we did since one could easily make each day into a few blog posts. I will post some pics since I know those are cooler than me just rambling, although the quality is not the best since I had to make sure there was enough space on the memory card for all of the days.

I am pretty sure most of you can guess what that is without me explaining it. It was amazing in person, even cooler than I had imgained. Sorry for the people in the pic, but cameras were banned, so I had to kind of hold it against my backpack in order to avoid the ever-alert employees. The detail on the statue is astounding, wth one being able to see the veins in the hand, muscle definition, etc


We were pretty gung-ho when it came to climbing tall buildings in order to get great views, and this is a pic from the Duomo in Florence looking down on the church to which the dome is attached and the belltower (yea, we climbed that too). We really lucked out with the weather for our trip, and we were able to see some gorgeous views of Florence and Rome.

This is a pic from the belltower looking at the Duomo. The way they built it is very impressive as they obviously did not have any of the modern day tools, and they had to basically build each section independently of the other parts.
Ahhh, Venice. While only there for 1 night, I can say with authority that the city absolutely rocks. Perhaps I will make a post in the future about the time we spent at Quadri and San Marco's square our night there. Suffice it to say that it was very, very, cool. Anyway, this is a pic looking at some sort of tourist building from across the river. Lol, that reminds me, perhaps I should make a post about our hostel in Venice, which wasn't in "real" Venice but actually in the armpit of Venice, nicely known as Marghera.

This is looking at the Rialto stop for the Water Bus thing (which was a lot of fun to ride). The Rialto is kind of the "it" spot for a lot of places, with nice hotels, restaurants, etc.

This is a long shot of one of the hallways in the Vatican musuem. The ceiling was awesome, and it was neat to stand there and look down almost as far as you could see and just see more rooms. The Vatican was one of the most ornate places I have seen, and the architecture/decor is like nothing I have seen.
Pic of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The chapel itself was incredible, and the detail that went into the frescos for the walls and ceilings is stunning.
This is a shot of the coolest building I have ever been into: Saint Peters at the Vatican. It is the world's largest Christian church, with the door to the back being over 200 meters. You can fit the Statue of Liberty in the front where the dome is without a problem (or so the guide says). It is absolutely HUGE inside. One cool thing is that the statues, etc, are all made much larger than normal, so when you are inside, it doesn't feel too big, as everything inside is on a larger scale as well. That reminds me. The day we went to the Vatican was Wed., which happens to be the day the Pope comes out and gives a blessing and benediction. So we got to see the pope (at one point while making a sort of pre-game victory lap in the pope-mobile, he got within 100 feet of us) and he blessed us in 7 languages (latin, french, english, italian, german, russian, spanish).

Well, that obviously barely scratches the surface of the trip, and when my travelling companions put up their photos on the internet, I'll steal the best ones to put here.