The Seaside

DAY 38 : 22 December 2014

This week's Sunday adventure took us to Lignano Sabbiadoro, a small seaside today 40 minutes south of Udine. It was a very very foggy day so we couldn't see much on the drive there, or in the town itself. We went for a little walk around the town...

And then met up with some friends of Francesca and Dario, as well as Allegra's grandma, and went for lunch. As Lignano is on the beach, it is known for its seafood - and we ate lots (maybe too much) of it!

Afterwards, we headed down to the beach, to see that famous annual sand nativity scene. It is basically a giant Christmas themed sandcastle...

The sand 'construction' surrounds a tree, where they give you a card, and you write your Christmas greeting/wish/thoughts and staple it to the tree.

There is also a rather large cafe that sits out over the water, some photos i took of it and while we were on it..

The cafe was also holding children's christmas cookie making, which was really cute with their little hats!

Aaaand that was my trip to Lignano. This may be my last post until next year (e.g in about a week's time) as we head to the mountains tomorrow, where I will most likely not have internet! 

Buon Natale e un felice anno nuovo!!

Love,

Jen

Arrivederci Firenze!

DAY 30 : 14 December 2014

Today was our final day in the beautiful city of Florence! 

We had the same delicious breakfast as yesterday, and had a checkout time of 11, when we left our bags and headed back into the city as a group. We got to see the real statue of David in our visit to another museum, which was interesting...

Afterwards, the group split up and we got to go do our own things, we chose to get some gelato! here's a photo of my pistachio, mocha, and tiramisu gelato scoops!

Eventually, one by one all the exchange students split up and headed to the train station to go home, but as mine and Nat's train wasn't until the evening, we had plenty of time to wander around, and get a yummy Lindt Hot Chocolate! 

At 5pm, we went to the train station with Oskar from Finland and Tomoko from Japan, and just hung around until our trains at 6:30. 

Half way through our train trip, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were told that someone had committed suicide by jumping in front of, not our train, but the train in front of ours, and we would be delayed significantly. So an hour and a half later we were on our way again, and finally made it home by midnight.

Going to Florence with the exchange company was just an amazing weekend, it was great to meet so many people from so many different countries, and we always had something to chat about of find out about! 

And the scenery in Florence wasn't too bad itself...

Love, 

Jen

Benvenuti a Firenze

DAY 28 : 12 December 2014

STUDENT EXCHANGE FLORENCE TRIP

This morning, I was up at 5:45 in order to be at the train station in time to meet Nat and catch the 7am train to Venice. Once at Venice train station, we rushed around, and hopped on a super fast, more luxurious train to Florence for the Student Exchange 3 day meeting!

We met at the train station with 20 other exchange students from 5 different nationalities! There was so much to talk about from the very beginning, with a bunch of Australians and Americans, a couple of Finnish people, a couple of Canadians, and a Mexican.

We walked to our hotel in the very centre of Florence - Hotel Pendini. It is a very nice, very italian hotel right next to the main piazza of Florence, and I am sharing a room with Nat and another Aussie, Elise.

Straight from the hotel, we went on a little walking tour, first stopping at Piazza Signoria then we were let off for a half hour to explore the piazza ourselves. Elise, Natalie and I went and got mini pizzas for lunch, and took some photos around, and saw a miniature version of the David statue. 

Where we went for lunch...

From then, we headed further through the city to the famous bridge Ponte Vecchio, and the shops and markets around it. 

Then we got some free time to walk around, we went and had a look at Hard Rock Cafe and Piazza Duomo then back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. A group of about 11 of us all went to a lovely italian restaurant, where I got a delicious Lasagna. Some photos of Piazza Duomo and all of us at dinner...

We went for a little walk around and got some gelato for dessert!

Something I've noticed about Florence is that everything is way way more expensive in this big city than in our humble little town of Udine! I've already spent way too much money, but it's all so amazing that I can't resist! 

Love, 

Jen 

SATURDAY IN FLORENCE

DAY 29 : 13 December 2014

Natalie, Elise and I all got up at 8:30 and headed to our included continental breakfast. Might I add, this continental breakfast is not like the one we have in Australia, it included a variety of cheeses, meats, croissants, cake, Nutella... Everything! So so yummy! 

At 10:45 we met up with the group to a museum, which had artworks from many famous italian artists. It was a huge museum/gallery, that took almost 2 hours to go through the whole 3 levels of the museum...

 Afterwards, we went to the Piazza Duomo, which looked so amazingly unrealistic, it was just so beautiful. We decided to climb the tower, and 10 euros and 414 stairs later, we reached the top of the second highest building in Florence. The view from there was just absolutely amazing...

The group separated again and we went and got some pizza for lunch, which was the first disgusting pizza I've had since being here. Definitely not up to the italian standard!! 

Then we got an afternoon free for shopping. As the prices are very high and not that exciting, we didn't buy much, but we did get some delicious Nutella crepes! 

Tonight's dinner was organised really late, for 9:30pm, so we left the hotel and walked to where we were having dinner. It ended up being a small night club, with a little buffett of various foods. It was an interesting night, ended up back in the hotel room pretty late for a well needed sleep!