Ciao! Sono Brianna

During May my whole family was able to come visit me and here is our top 10 from the week!

1. Luggage. Saturday I went to go pick up the family at the airport and we found out that their luggage did not make their flights. We were told though that it would be on the next flight over and would get in later that afternoon. While we waited I took them to the duomo area where we went to my one of my favorite restaurants Luinis for some food and then got gelato at one of the best gelato places. We came back to my dorm for a little bit of downtime since they were jet lagged and then went and climbed to the top of the duomo. After we went back to the airport and found out that my sisters suitcase did not make it but that meant.... shopping!! I said out of all the places to lose luggage at least it was in the fashion capital of the world. We ended up getting their suitcase a few days later. That night we went to dinner at a pizzeria and Sydney decided she was too tired so she fell asleep while at dinner.

2. Florence. The next day we left early to get on a train to Florence. We waited in line to see Michelangelo's David statue and the entire Accademia Gallery. There were so many paintings throughout the museum and Syndey and my mom loved reading about all the paintings and then having Syd find various things on the paintings. After that we got some lunch at a nearby restaurant and walked around seeing the various sights Florence has to offer. Of course we climbed the bell tower of the dumo and there were so many stairs... WE WERE DYING! It was soo hott and such small corridors; we had to keep cheering each other on throughout the journey up. We shopped around the leather market to get us girls some purses and dad a belt. Then we stopped at a restaurant for dinner where we all got various pastas. Then the family took a train to Rome and I came home to Milan since I had school and various group projects.

3. Food market. There has been an international food market in Milan for the past few weeks so when my family came back to Milan on Tuesday night, Wednesday that was our first stop. I met them down at duomo after I was finished with class and while I was in class they went inside the duomo. Marissa and Sydney forgot to wear long pants so they luckily had some of my clothes still so they put it on over their clothes. We went to the food market where we had a hummus platter, some brats, a meat plate and cheese. We walked around the castle and while there Sydney got a HORRIBLE bloody nose right in the middle of us trying to take a family picture. There is always something with my family.

4. Maya. That night I took them to their first aperitivo at Maya which is where you buy a drink and then get an unlimited buffet so they got to try a lot of different Italian dishes. There were a lot of different pasta, lasagna, rice dishes and their favorite thing was the chocolate cake with the chocolate fondue fountain.

5. Old Fashion. Later that night I was able to take Jack with me and my friends to our favorite place to go out. All of my friends didn’t understand how he puts up with my loudness and everyone kept saying we looked identical... Not sure if that’s a good thing or not considering that means either I look like a boy or Jack a girl.

6. Como. Jack and I slept through our alarms on Thursday morning and we were supposed to meet my parents and sisters at the train station since he stayed with me in my dorm. We were woken up by a very frantic mother who thought we had either died, been taken by strangers or who knows what other thoughts were running through her head! We got on a train though to Lake Como which is the biggest lake in Italy and George Clooney has a house on it. Mom and Dad had packed lunch food for us that day so we were able to have a picnic in the middle of a park. Of course it ended with all of us siblings piling on top of Jack. While at Como we went on a tourist train around the Lake and saw various parts of Como and then were able to take a ferry over to a different area of Como. Also, every city we went to in Italy we had to try the gelato so Como was no different. We left Como right before dinner so when we came back to Milan we went to a pizza place our airbnb guy had recommended and it was by far the BIGGEST pizza I have ever gotten in Italy. My sisters and mom thought they wouldn’t be able to finish there’s.... but they finished all of it.

7. Cinque Terre Hike. We had to wake up around 5 am on Friday morning to make our train to Cinque Terre. Once we got there we stopped at a place for breakfast were we had the WORST cappuccino ever, which I didn’t think was possible in Italy. We then hiked from Monterosso to Vernazza.... It took us under two hours but boy were we sweating. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 cities and the hike in-between Monterosso and Vernazza is the most challenging. There were soo many stairs and steep inclines. At one point us kids started sprinting because we all wanted to be in front... that was a huge mistake.

8. Cinque Terre day 1. When we got to Vernazza we walked around for a bit and then took a ferry over to Rio Maggiore. We were starving so we stopped at this takeout pizza place and got this pizza that was big enough for all of us to split. It was made to feed 8 people and it did since we count Jack and Syndey as eating for two people. We hung out by the rocks for a while and then took a ferry back to Monterosso. That night we went to dinner on the coast and for our appetizer we got the best pesto bruschetta. I also think we might have eaten about 6 baskets of bread. After we went back to the apartment and played a few games of parents against kids. That game is so rigged! The questions for the parents are so much harder than the ones for the kids.

9. Cinque Terre day 2. The next day we woke up and went to the beach for the entire day. We needed a day in the sun but more importantly a day spent relaxing. We rented kayaks and kayaked around the ocean. The weirdest thing about that beach were the gypsies walking around offering messages. Everyone in my family thought it was normal besides me!! That night we caught our train back to Milan and us sisters watch Mama Mia and we all just hung out.

10. My family. I know that the trip was a lot for my family but having them come visit me in Italy meant the world. Being able to show them around Milan, my home for the past 5 months, and then being able to travel around Italy while they were here was amazing. Us kids are also getting to that age where we genuinely get along for at least 80 percent of the time! My siblings are also TOO TALL! Marissa is officially taller than I am.... The week with them was incredible and I wouldn't have changed it for the world. LOVE YOU ALL!

day of arrival

I swear he loves me

On top of duomo

so much jet lag

bell tower in Florence

various views on top of the bell tower

Sydney got teased by this statue or person type thing

Whole family in Florence and then us kids below

Food from the international market

Im assuming this will be on our Christmas card

at maya

Hanging at Como

Various pictures at como

Various views from our hike in cinque

Just finished the hike

In Vernazza

In Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore view from the ferry

Kayaking in the Sea

way back to Milan

The first weekend in May I traveled to the south of Italy to the Amalfi Coast and visited the cities of Sorrento, Capri, Positano, and Pompeii. Here are the top 10 from the trip! Coming up this weekend..... THE COLEMAN FAMILY WILL BE INVADING ITALY AND I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED! We have a lot packed into the 9 days they are here which includes Florence, Rome, Lake Como, Milan and Cinque Terre. It will be extremely busy but totally worth it. This is the only time since I've been in Milan that I hope this week prior to them arriving goes by fast!

1. Mike Ditka. To start off our trip we had to take a train to Florence before meeting the bus2alps crew to get on a bus to Sorrento. Bus2Alps is a tour group throughout Europe known for planning and organizing trips for Americans who are studying abroad. On the train we were seated in business class and the best part of those seats were getting free snacks/drinks! We have yet to take any form of transportation that offers something as little as crackers because we take the cheapest transportation there is. Emma and I are 95% sure we were seated across from Mike Ditka on that train ride. I was sleeping the whole train ride and Emma was on her phone trying to figure out if it was him or not. She didn't tell me till I woke up when we got to Florence and by then it was too late to ask. BUT, we’re pretty sure it was him.

2. Bus Ride. After getting to Florence we had to get on the bus for Sorrento. We were under the impression that the ride would be 3/4 hours max. Boy were we wrong... (The theme of the weekend was we were NEVER prepared for anything. This was just the beginning.) The bus ride was going to be 7/8 hours... Way more than we had planned. When we were waiting to get on the bus, before we knew how long the ride was going to be, we noticed everyone had pillows and we did not know why. After they said how long the bus ride was actually going to be we understood why. I slept for most of the bus ride unlike majority of my friends and woke up in Sorrento at 3 am to Emma chucking gummy sharks at my face...

3. Blue Grotto. Friday morning we had to meet the group at 7:30 am to make our way to the island of Capri. We woke up to clear skies so we dressed as if that would be the weather for the rest of the day; another time when we were very wrong. We took a ferry to Capri and then had a boat tour around the island. We found out during that tour that many celebrities have villas on the island of Capri such as Mariah Carey and Leonardo Dicaprio. During the boat ride we stopped at the Blue Grotto and for the first time in 3 weeks it was open. The entrance to the grotto is so small that we all had to lie down on the bottom of the boat, including the driver, who then had to pull us through the opening with a chain connected to the top of the entrance. Once inside it was breathtaking. The water was so blue and it wasn't even sunny out. The light from outside passes through an underwater cavity and shines through the seawater which creates a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern. We couldn't imagine what it was like when the weather was beautiful. The blue grotto is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the world, which after seeing it makes sense why. After the grotto is when all hell broke loose. It had been sprinkling a little before we went in but we didn't think anything of it. Once out and back onto our original boat it started down pouring. None of us 4 girls had umbrellas, I was in a romper, Annie in shorts, Emma in a tank and Alex was also dressed as if it was summer. To say we looked stupid was an understatement. When we got to the Marina we ran into a store to buy umbrellas, ponchos and Emma and Alex needed sweatshirts. Of course right after we purchased all of these things it stopped raining and actually started to clear up.

4.Anacapri. After we got situated we took a train up half of the mountain and then a bus up to the top city called Anacapri. At Anacapri we took a single person chair lift to the highest point of Capri which takes you up 589-m to Monte Solaro (which takes about 15 min one way and is a lot higher than any other chairlift I have been on while skiing). During the chair lift Emma yelled to me the randomest thing you could think of, "What would you do if you took your infant on this thing with you?" Of course we told her no one would ever do that and I kid you not 10 min later a guy was coming down the chairlift with an infant in his arms. Once we got to the top we were speechless. The view was amazing because it felt like the end of the earth, where sky meets sea. All you could see was water and sky and it was all so blue. After walking around, eating some really good pasta with eggplant and tomatoes, shopping, getting amazing lemon slushies, going through the gardens that overlook Faraglioni (the famous three spurs of rock which rise out of the sea), taking pictures (where I tried getting over a fence to go out on the edge of the cliff and ended up getting stuck. My friends ask me quite frequently if I'm a dancer why am I not more graceful) and tasting limoncello and chocolate, we finally made our way back down the mountain and then got on the ferry home to Sorrento.

5. Friday Night. That night we took a bus into the town of Sorrento to find dinner. We ended up at this super cute restaurant and took our time at dinner. We really are turning into Italians. Without realizing it, I ordered almost the same thing I had for lunch that day, pasta with eggplant and tomatoes but at least this time it was baked pasta. We ordered a few bottles of wine and spent a good few hours eating, drinking and talking. After our dinner we made our way to English Inn which was this outdoor bar that everyone in our group was going to that night. They were playing all old school songs so we danced our butts off that night.

6. Down pouring once again. Saturday morning we woke up to it down pouring and to get to the ferry to go to Positano we had to make our way down to the water by walking down this huge hill. Italy has mostly cobble stone on the roads so walking down this steep cobble stone hill while it was pouring was not ideal. It was still raining once we got to Positano so we made our way to a restaurant for lunch where I got four cheese pizza that was so good. Positano is perched on an enclave on the face of a hill and winds down towards the waters of the Amalfi Coast.

7. Rock Beach. After lunch we shopped around because there were so many quaint shops and restaurants. A bonus was that the clouds went away and the sun finally came out. After we grabbed some amazing slushies and made our way down to the beach to just sit and take in the water and the atmosphere of everything. The water surrounding the Amalfi coast area is known for how blue and clear it is and if you search around the beaches (which are rock beaches) you can find plenty of different colored sea glass.

8. Dinner. Saturday night we had a late dinner at a local restaurant where I had homemade ravioli, a side salad and of course we ordered wine, sat, talked, and hung out for awhile.

9. Pompeii. Sunday we woke up and got back on the bus to go home but on the way stopped in Pompeii (which means cross roads). We were set up with a tour guide to receive a tour of the ruins whose name was Antonio. Throughout the whole tour he kept referring to us as “Ma famiglia.” The information he gave us was so interesting. There were three cities affected by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, with Pompeii being one of them. When the volcano erupted 7,000 ft. of it blew off and covered 30/40 feet of the cities which extended the land 700 ft. The ocean use to be 300 ft. from the city center but after the eruption is now a mile away. There are other mountains surrounding Pompeii which are called the back bones of Italy and the people that lived on these mountains were called the strong ones. When building Pompeii, they first used rock and lava to build the city but it was too hard to work with so they switched to limestone. They then used yellow tufa because of how soft it was. They got the brick techniques that you can see throughout the city from Africa and Morocco and brick was also a lot cheaper during that time. Throughout the houses you can see holes where they would put the shrines for gods and a common one in stores was the commerce god. Houses had summer and winter parts and married people slept in different rooms and even had their own dressing rooms and closets. My favorite part of the houses had to be that they had designated nap rooms. The city center was filled with marble and surround by public buildings which meant no homes were in this area. There was an election room, government area market and something dedicated to the god Apollo surrounding the city center. The people of Pompeii used a lot of "technology" that we still use today such as indoor plumbing, water fountains, building structures etc. They were a lot smarter than I would have every thought. We also saw the red light district which one could locate by a "symbol" in the cobble stone of the streets that was a "male body part" pointing in the direction of the red light district. There was so much more information that we got from Antonio that really made the tour worthwhile.

10. Getting Home. After Pompeii we made our way back to Florence. We had had a friend check for us the times of the trains from Florence to Milan for Sunday night and we found out since we weren't supposed to be getting back till 9/10 there were only 2 we could have possibly make - one at 9:25 and another at 10 which was actually sold out (we were hoping to be able to get last minute tickets at the train station because sometimes the train websites are weird). At the beginning of the bus ride we were making really good time and we got our hopes up that we could make the 9:25 train. Then we hit traffic. It was so bad that people were actually standing outside their cars taking pictures. We finally got to Florence at 9:45 pm... We sprinted off the bus and ran to the train station and the ticket station said the 10 pm was completely sold out. We went to talk to the ticket people who confirmed the train was sold out but you could always talk to the conductor. So we begged them to let us on which they did, in standing room, and we had never been more thankful to be on a train. Then once we got to Milan we grabbed a tax,i since the metro was closed, and our spirits were lifted not only because we weren't stranded in Florence for a night but because the taxi driver was playing good music and he sang along with us to it.