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back in madrid started off with breakfast at Plenti - frittata with peppers feta and potatoes. yumz. then went to the royal palace and chapel! palace was amazing and I did contact the landlord about available rooms. amazing views from the top of the chapel too. lunch was a far walk, but incredible. was called casa de mingos and had amazing cider and this chicken that i could have for the rest of my life. reminded me of sostanza a bit. then we went home and rested a bit after this and eventually headed out to see reina sofia!! this museum was so cool and I saw a ton of stuff I recognized (more than guernica) and we got to see cool modern exhibits that were awesome. A+ museum!! then dinner at rosi la loca thanks to jenny’s recommendation (amazing too)

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day trip to toledo: started walking to el Greco museum and a local stopped us to show up a gold making place where they make jewelry and pins and stuff. probably was trying to scam us but oh well. went to el greco, then alcázar, then lunch at ludeña. putzed around some then went to see the mosque before heading home. come back in madrid, went to the market de san Ildefonso for dinner which was amazing!!

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first day in madrid: dinner at san miguel market then churros at san ginés! next day: breakfast at toma for amazing avocado toast with blue berries. big museum day today- walked through retiro park, went to el prado, went to thyssen museum, glass castle with an exhibit inside, forum with corners up in the air, then at home cooked dinner!

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mom and dad in florence: ponte vecchio - proscuitteria - uffizi gallery museum - la buchetta florentine steak!!

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so here our semester comes to a close....while our program ended all exams on Wednesday, my friends had flights out of Florence on Thursday morning. Wednesday night was our last night to spend together!! We went to dinner at La Giostra which is a Michelin starred restaurant in Florence. This happened to be right below borgo pinti 10 (morgan and bridget’s apartment) and so to save money at what would be a pricy dinner we had wine and primi there. We headed to dinner and had an amazing meal! we had complimentary prosecco and sample platters which were delicious. after this dinner we headed out to Kikuya for one last time and had ourselves a great night!! Since a lot of us still had to pack or had early shuttles to the airport, we parted ways at Kikuya and said see you in America. luckily for my friends, we all go to SJU together except for Cara, but she goes to UD so we know we’ll see her. While packing, my roommates and I realized we had never gotten a great group picture together, so we obviously set up my tripod and timer to take a picture of us on me and Meredith’s megabed. As you can see, it turned out awesome. I still will be traveling with family until the end of December so don’t think i’m done here yet!! But Florence, even though i’m here until Sunday, I miss you already. Thanks for the times!!!

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On our last day in Amsterdam, we headed to the famous Pancake Bakery for breakfasts and huge Dutch pancakes. I wish I had a picture but I got the apple one that was bigger than my plate! This was so yummy and I probably could have eaten two. After this, it started raining so instead of walking around an empty Amsterdam, we went to chill and relax some more in a cafe right by the Anne Frank house for a while. We had a tour set up and so we got to go through the house and museum and see all parts of where Anne Frank and her family lived in hiding for two years. This was an incredible experience and so fascinating that we couldn't even put into words. After seeing Anne Frank house, we headed to the airport because Carly's flight was sooner than Erin and I, and although our flight wasn't until late we needed to get work done for a big week ahead of us. So, we get to the airport do some work, say goodbye to Carly by saying "see you in Philly" rather than see you in the next city we meet up in.. weird feeling. This trip was our last semester travel weekend after all! Anywho, Erin and I sit in the airport doing work, reading, studying, preparing presentations, and we get an email that our flight is delayed an hour and a half...... this leads us to land at 12:30 am rather than our 11:00PM expected time! So we're a little annoyed since we've been at the airport since 3 pm. Once our new departure time rolls around we get another email about ANOTHER delay this time only 20 minutes. After all of this, we get on the flight and land in florence at 1 am awaiting our taxi!! Woohoo!! Love traveling abroad its very glamorous I swear

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on saturday we had a nice relaxed morning, with no reason to wake up early which is the BEST. so we headed to breakfast at cafe du paris, where I had an amazing eggs benedict. it wasn’t as good as the ones in america but it did the trick!! after this we walked around only to find ourselves at the albert cuyp market again for more stroopwaffels!! this time we bought packs to take home, because the tradition is that when they are not made fresh, they’re served with tea or coffee and warmed up on top of the cup to make the caramel all gooey again. So obviously we have to try this!! after eating ourselves sick full of breakfast and stroopwaffels we needed to sit down a bit so we did a canal tour. we were taken on a tour for 75 minutes through the canals of amsterdam to learn all about its history and different areas of amsterdam! it was a nice way to relax and still get to see the city. after the canal tour we went to the nine streets which is a cute shopping area with lots of little boutiques and small shops rather than big name stores we are used to. we saw tons of cute jewelry and erin got the softest scarf to exist. after this we went for drinks as it started to drizzle a bit, and got some snacks too before we went to the Heineken experience! this truly is a whole experience, as it is a tour of the brewery and learning how beer is brewed, while also doing different activities and games. at the end we had 2 drink tokens to use at the heineken bar! after this we were starving and went to a dim sum place we had walked past so many times during the day. it was good don’t get me wrong but it was nothing like the dim sum in florence that I know and love. I also didn’t get dumplings because i didn’t want them to be better than the ones I have!!! after this weird combo of food and drink for the whole day, we needed to get back home and rest for an actual early day! this time we took the bus to avoid the uber problems :)

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first full day in amsterdam! we arrived thursday night and for a good nights sleep in the airbnb. in the morning we woke up to fully explore amsterdam. we started off at a breakfast place called omelegg for amazing omelets and breakfast! we then walked toward the van gogh museum, and passed the amsterdam letters on the way. these are kind of dumb and it literally just says amsterdam in these huge letters, but it was so fun taking pictures with them and climbing the letters and even more watching people climb to the top and wondering how they’re going to get down. But anyway, we went to van gogh which was so cool! Vincent van gogh lived most of his life in amsterdam and the museum had a lot of his work, while also talking about his life and art work all around the world. after this museum, right next to it was the Moco museum. This was a random little house with art exhibits, and it had a banksy and Roy Liechtenstein exhibit! I really like the documentary “exit through the gift shop” which is all about banksy and other street artists, so seeing his stuff on exhibit was so cool. this museum had a completely different vibe which was more relaxed, which we liked too. then we were told to go to the Albert Cuyp Market which is a huge street of food stands and other little shops, and we stumbled up the. MOST. incredible. cookie. ever. we found ourselves in front of a red and white checkered stand with one man behind it, making these delicious caramel filled flat waffles. It was incredible!!!! I’ll spare you the suspense, we did go back the next day for more and he recognized us. But it turns out that the one we went to was the famous and original stroopwaffel whereas many other stands were selling them but those weren’t legit. we then continued to walk down amsterdam’s many little alleyways and do some window shopping! we ended up at a bar to get inside the warmth and it was probably the most local bar we could have picked in amsterdam. we opened the door and pretty much everyone was looking at us.... but we enjoyed our ciders before we decided it was time to go eat! We went to another street known for their restaurants and ended up at a simple burger place! once we decided to go home, everyone had told us uber is the way to go, especially since we are pretty far outside the city. So, carly calls an uber and as we’re looking for the plate number, her phone dies. and then erin was like fine fine I got this, and she calls one so we find the right car and get in, after asking the guy who he is here to pick up and he says erin. then we’re in the car and he pulls over to check his maps, and he says he can’t find us anymore in his app as a passenger? and then erin’s phone died! so maybe that’s why she didn’t show up anymore, but we still don’t know. THEN I was like okay people I got this! And I successfully got everyone home because my phone wasn’t dying! you’re welcome everyone! overall, we enjoyed our first day in amsterdam and loved the walk ability and amount of people walking, along with the scenic views every canal we crossed!

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on sunday we woke up in the danish countryside and had a simple breakfast before heading back to copenhagen. We had to drop carly’s friend Liv off at the airport, and then despite the rainy weather carly and I walked around copenhagen to finish seeing the sights. We went to the glass market which is this huge glass building with shops inside, some restaurants some stuff some butchers, all the good stuff. outside of this was a market for christmas trees and flowers and it was just so cute! we then went around to see more christmas markets so I could buy some amazing alpaca wool socks (amazing). we then went to papier island which is where we went to eat the first time I was in copenhagen!! everything really does go full circle. After enjoying food and a creme brûlée donut here we continued on to the botanical garden. this was the cutest thing and we walked through a beautiful park to get to it. I don’t know if I have said it at all or too many times but the greenery in florence is pretty nonexistent which gets to be sad. that being said, I loved seeing this beautiful greenhouse and park with tons of greens. from here we went to walk around and shop around before I had to catch my metro to the airport. Overall a lot of going to markets and window shopping around, which is what I loved about copenhagen. Carly it was real thanks for being my host and letting me back for a second time this semmy!!

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our danish thanksgiving!!

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day two in copenhagen and we had a lot to squeeze in before getting picked up to go to Carly’s danish host Family’s house. so we started off going to breakfast at democratic coffee for some pastries, which I got an apple something right out of the oven that changed my life and a ham and cheese and mustard sandwich in a croissant. all in all, amazing. We then we on our way to see the changing of the guards and they just happened to walk past US! so naturally we just followed behind them while they performed some songs. they led us to the amalienborg palace and we saw the entire changing of the guards. What are the odds it just worked out like that! After this we walked around toward where carly goes to classes, and we went to next door cafe for a chai latte and at Mark and Lizzie’s request (carly thinks it is kind of overrated but I thought it was good!!!) we then went to christiania and tried to go to the top of THAT giant round tower, and it was closed because the day got so foggy we couldn’t even see the top from the streets. So instead we headed toward a library called the Royal Danish Library aka the black diamond and saw its beauty. it was this huge gorgeous library on the river and had these amazing stacks of books and some exhibits, a cafe, overall a lot going on. After this we headed back to carly’s apartment to prepare for Ole to come pick us up! He came and brought us to his home with his wife Lene and their son Jonas. This family is carly’s visiting host family, which means she is able to do danish things with them and have a sort of host family without living in their home. They live about an hour northwest of copenhagen in the countryside and we saw tons of fields of vegetables and some pigs in a huge field enjoying the grass and mud. I’m going to be honest, I fell asleep a bit during this car ride so seeing the pigs and little piglets is pretty much all I remember being awake for. But we arrived to their beautiful home which was built in 1842 and they have renovated here and there to get where they are today. It is a cute wonderful little home!! So we sat down and enjoyed some pancake balls with jam and powdered sugar, and some gingerbread cookie sort of little mini cookies (size of an almond maybe? but a cookie). With this we had some tea and some grøgg which is a mulled wine very popular here, and this particular one was from sweden they had gotten. I enjoyed the smell of this grøgg but didn’t totally love it.... so I enjoyed sipping on my tea. They then told us that there are danish crafts they normally do for christmas time, and so Lene showed us how to make a paper star and even these hearts made out of paper! when we started here we really did not stop. For some reason, these crafts were just what we needed to have an awesome peaceful evening and we ended up crafting the night away— stars, hearts, cards, all types of paper and stickers and fabrics. we may have gone overboard and ended up each with a box of things we had made. I think Ole and Lene kept seeing us really enjoy doing one thing and then they would be like WAIT! Use this too! and bring out a new material we loved. It was amazing. We paused our crafts to have some dinner which was also a traditional holiday meal. It was duck, candied potatoes, and red cabbage salad with pomegranates and pears and walnuts. This entire meal was so wonderful and so festive, we could not have asked for anything better. This was the first time I tried duck I think, and it was so good! this was the kind of meal where we filled our plates and kept eating until everything was gone. After dinner we returned to our crafts and enjoyed some more hygge (google it if you don’t know!! danish feeling of comfort and companionship and interpreted all sorts of ways..) before it was time for dessert. Now this was something unique. apparently, it is common danish desert to have a fruit jam and milk for dessert. that’s it. so you put heaps of (in our case) strawberry jam in your bowl, and put some milk in it, and spoon it right into your mouth. I know. sort of strange but also pretty yummy somehow. Right after this dessert, we began our next dessert activity which is making marzipan!! i had never done this before and Lene was a master at making all sorts of little animals and shapes, and the best I could do was make a ball filled with nougat. Overall, we spent our whole evening talking and laughing and eating and drinking and just enjoying each others company. That is what hygge is all about, and we got to really experience it in denmark! I promise I will post some photos carly gets from Lene and Ole that we all took together!!

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friday morning I made my way to COPENHAGEN! it was so strange being here because I visited carly here on my way here, in carly’s second week in denmark, and it was so strange that we went completely full circle. I started there and then here I am with only a few weeks left in europe for the semester, again in Copenhagen! anyway, carly’s friend from home Liv was also here when I arrived, and she was there for the whole week for her thanksgiving break. So I met up with the two of them and made my way to drop off my stuff at carly’s apartment. We then walked around to see christmas markets, and go to the top of the round tower with an awesome view of copenhagen. We joked that all of europe basically you get to a new city and you’re like hey, I like this city, I want to walk to the top of that huge building and see an aerial view NOW!!! hahaha but anyway we really enjoyed the view and this was just a huge incline rather than tons of steps. after this we really just walked around a ton and saw the sights of copenhagen! we were in norreport and norreboro before going to Tivoli gardens. THIS WAS AMAZING. it was apparently a theme park that inspired walt disney to make disneyland. there were carnival rides, games, food stands, and shops all similar to the christmas markets we had seen earlier in the day. I can’t even explain how many soft cozy hats or slippers I saw that I wanted to buy and had to tell myself not to. There were lights everywhere and beautiful decorations and all kinds of things to look at. basically we kept getting lost and going in circles. But eventually there was a light show to the nutcracker music, which was amazing of course. This was probably the highlight of my time in tivoli because it was so impressive. after this we left the beautiful tivoli before hitting a cool bar in the meat packing district called jolene. this was quite difficult to find because carly had always taken different ways to get there and it usually included walking through other buildings or alleys that were this time gated off (weird I know). But we eventually made it and enjoyed watching people dance to weird danish music. But it was a time well spent and we headed back to go to bed before our big day ahead of us!!

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! 🍁🦃 We has an awesome thanksgiving. Meredith got back from class around 5 and we decided we needed to make some Gin and Tonics (our favorite cocktail) before our dinner reservation!! we have a cocktail party at home before thanksgiving so this just felt right. We enjoyed some drinks and some little snacks before getting ready for dinner. we made a reservation at gatto e la volpe with jolene and tash, and when we got there we found out they had an american thanksgiving menu! so we accidentally ordered too much food because 3 of us got the thanksgiving meal which came with an antipasto and we didn’t know it, which we also ordered. So we’re sitting at this tiny table and our table is overflowing with food and I have a plate in my lap with some stuff and just all these bottles all over the place. After we overindulged and could barely walk home we were so stuffed, we hung out a bit and danced around/danced off the food at tash and jolene’s. At this point, I had an early train in the morning i needed to go home and SLEEP!!! this picture is Jolene, Meredith, and Tash Left to right :)

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CARLY italy update

hi there, if any of my loyal followers realized a gap in my story about my friend carly when she visited florence, here is my version of the update! we have collaborated on this post and a few versions of her story will be posted on carlymontcalvo.com under Miles of Smiles. ANYWHO, carly was so stressed about getting a cab, I’m not sure where I left off.... but she ultimately decided OKAY. i’m going to just go to the airport and sleep there instead of worrying about getting a cab in the middle of the night! so i’m like okay 12 midnight and I sent carly off looking for a cab to the airport. I gave her some cash in case she needed it (like the good mom I am) and wished her well. We had joked earlier saying isn’t it nice that airports don’t close you can always just be there? Right... about 40 minutes later I get a call from carly saying hey guess what!!! airport is closed and locked and I need to come back!!!! And let me tell you she was no happy camper. (more details on her blog) and so I called a cab company, set a pick up time for 330 am, and carly went and slept approximately 20 minutes. poor carly eventually made it to the airport after 3 total cabs. Carly wanted me to update my followers on this (dad) and she was sure someone was wondering about the cliffhanger I left. sorry but now here is the end of that story!

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today on saturday we had a relaxing morning and made ourselves an awesome brunch with avocado toast and a yogurt parfait, and then we worked a bit on internships or shopping or stuff in between. We then met up with our friend Kelly to go to a market that ended up being closed, but we found a really cool neighborhood and explored that for a few hours instead!! We are finding it hard to believe we live in such a beautiful place and have for a few months, and having an even harder time realizing we have less than a month left :(

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on Friday we felt like hitting up Rome for lunch (aka this meat platter) so we did! Meredith and I hadn’t gone anywhere together except for our mandatory field trips at the beginning of the semester so we wanted to go somewhere. We met up with Meredith’s friend from home Stephanie who is studying abroad in Rome and she brought us to La Proscuitteria for this amazing platter!! We did our classic walk around and go into shops, and Stephanie got to show us her life in Rome. We then met up with our sju friends Freddie and Vin for gelato, at one of their favorite places Frigidarium. We headed to the car sanctuary for what is always weird and interesting to watch, and then caught our train back to Florence! The perfect day trip for us.

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sunday, we woke up to a beautifully clear day! we were planned to go to see lake Brienz which is a one of the two beautiful lakes Interlaken in nestled between. (interlaken.... between lakes.. get it?). despite the beautiful weather our guide told us the sky activities for the day had been canceled, which sucks because two of our friends had last minute decided to paraglide Sunday morning, only to have it be canceled. anyway, we walked about 20 minutes to a point on this lake that basically was a photo op (not mad about it) and it was incredible. I didn’t realize that the entire scenery of switzerland would look like a green screen or that it REALLY looked like that. I haven’t seen anything like it and I will always remember it being so beautiful on this clear day! After this walk and enjoying the view and fresh air we sometimes lack in Florence, we went to get sandwiches for lunch before our bus left back to Florence. Overall, switzerland was an amazing weekend trip for me because I felt like I was out in nature again!! and I could really breathe and enjoy being there. We had an awesome group of people there that made things really easy without any issues as to what we should do. I hope to be back to interlaken another time in my life to enjoy it even more :)