Hello internet people! This is going to be a short post because I’m presently sitting in my semi-posh hotel room in Florence, Italy using the remaining minutes of our 5 euro internet connection to do one of my very favorite things–ramble using my words on the internet!

Basically, I want to fill you all in on the glory that has been the nice, relaxing final leg of a truly once in a lifetime study abroad experience.

We began our glorious journey in Italy, sans any ability with the language whatsoever, by taking a lovely plane (with actual food and seats and checked bags and everything) to Venice! Venice, if you didn’t know, is completely surrounded by water and has no roads. Just water. It was a really unique experience, and quite fun not having to watch out for cars, since you’d have to actually jump into a canal to worry about any traffic other than that of the pedestrian variety.

Venice is a gorgeous city, especially because of all of this water. There are few things I love more than a good body of water, especially when the sunlight (SUNLIGHT) is hitting it just right. And yes, Italy IS full of scary people who come up to you telling you silly things like “Half off because you have beautiful smile” and trying to get you to buy useless stuff you don’t want, but I can tell you how to deal with that right now–run away! They are only going to follow you so far, and the language barrier can really only HELP you at that point. Just scamper off and enjoy the city, never minding the silly people selling you silly things.

What did we DO in Venice, you might ask? We did a lot of wandering around and looking at stuff, which is one of my favorite activities to do in a new city. We did a spot of shopping and navigated the city without a map rather cleverly. We saw a gorgeous cathedral by the name of San Marco and we ate a lot of gelato and other such glorious things. I have now consumed more pasta and pizza than I would have EVER thought possible. These things are rather prevalent in Italy, regardless of the fact that our trip courier assured us that most Italians do NOT routinely stuff their faces with pasta. Still, they do it right and I have enjoyed every single bite of it (even if it’s currently resting nicely on my stomach giving me a bit of extra padding I didn’t ask for).

It’s been a very chill vacation thus far, and I’m definitely planning on keeping it that way. A bit more wine, a bit more pasta, and a bit more sun and then it’s back to my real life, taking this glorious amazing dream of an experience with me.