When Sarah J and I parted ways after a boujee French breakfast in Boujeetown, London, UK, Sarah went to take a ride on the London Eye and I went to Kings Cross. I spotted my dad’s head over the crowd and all but ran to him. My parents had finally arrived in the UK!

It was cold and snowing and we were unprepared, so we sat in a Starbucks with hot drinks until we decided to head to their hotel in Oakham (a town about 30 minutes away from Harlaxton). My wild dad decided to rent a car, so he drove us while I navigated. Kitty sat in the back because she was nervous but continued to criticize dad’s driving and remind him to stay on the wrong side of the road. We stopped along the way to get dinner at Nando’s in Peterborough, which they loved, and then continued our drive to Oakham. We took a trip to Tesco for groceries and then hung out in the living room until it was time for bed.

The next morning, they made breakfast and we went back to Harlaxton for a tour. They left me there and went to Scotland for a few days while I did school and homework things (I procrastinated), then we were able to spend one more evening together back in Oakham. We made a frozen “lasagna” that was not anything close to a lasagna and laughed about it for the rest of the night. The next morning, my parents took me back to Harlaxton one last time so I could reunite with two of my good pals and head to Italy.

We Out Here in Italy (Ballin’ on a Budget)

I am absolutely overjoyed to welcome back my favorite travel buddies to this week’s edition of Untold Stories of Harlaxton. Hi, Sarah and Allie! My blog has missed this trio so much.

If I had to recount one thing from Harlaxton that made me feel like a total travel expert, it would have to be the time Sarah, Allie, and I booked a roundtrip adventure to Venice, Florence, and Rome for only $118. No, not £118. One hundred and eighteen US dollars. That was before we booked accommodation, but even then we managed to spend less than $300.

We left for the airport super early. As in, we got there so early we were on the other side of security with three hours to kill before our flight left. That was the best airport experience I’ve ever had, because there was no running or stressing or anything but eating and coffee drinking and reading. I finished my February book of the month (Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia‎ & ‎Margaret Stohl—I highly recommend this book!) and bought a new book with Allie. We ate at Itsu and then we got on our flight to Venice!

A Visit to Venice

Once in Venice, we took a bus as far as it would go into the island and walked the remaining 30 to 40 minutes to our hostel. We didn’t pack towels, so we took showers and went to bed with soaking wet hair!

The next morning, we got up to “carpe the diem”, as I said way too many times that weekend, in Venice. All we really did was walk around and eat lunch, so there wasn’t the most day seizing in the history of Carpe Diem-ing (no gondola rides, I recount as my heart breaks). BUT, make no mistake—my time there was great, and my lunch was greater. We almost didn’t stop at the restaurant we chose, and if we hadn’t I would have never eaten the best spaghetti of my life. I also bought lemon cookies that are so delicious I have cried about them. On our way out of Venice, I got chocolate gelato that was so creamy I almost passed out.

Florence (Is For Tourists)

We had a mostly pleasant bus ride to Florence, but there was someone who had some really bad B.O. the entire ride. After we got dropped off, we walked about 30 minutes to our Airbnb in Florence. We got all set up in the Airbnb, then we went to a supermarket to get ingredients for a homemade spaghetti dinner. We went super authentic and got Barilla pasta and sauce, some Babybel cheese, premade salad mix, a somewhat freshly baked loaf of bread, and a pineapple. We cooked the spaghetti and cut up the pineapple, but we couldn’t toast the bread (mysterious foreign oven problems). The spaghetti ended up being delicious, the pineapple ended up being delicious but also burned our mouths, the salad was bitter, and the bread was so absolutely disgusting I tried to pay Sarah and Allie to stop eating it. When we finished eating, we went out for gelato round two! I got dark chocolate and mint this time, and it wasn’t as great as round one but it was still tasty.

On Friday, we slept in before going sightseeing. We saw the replica of David, the Duomo from the street, and the Duomo from the roof of a library before eating lunch. The pizza I had was just okay, but gelato round three was strawberry and delicious. We tried to get into a garden but we had to pay, so we decided to walk to a Mercato Centrale. Allie and I shared gelato round four, which was a mind-blowing lemon flavor. We were upset with ourselves because we didn’t eat lunch in the market. We walked back to the Airbnb and chilled for a while before going to watch the sunset over Florence. The sunset was beautiful, and there were other tourists there who said funny things that will stick with me forever.

After sunset, we made dinner in the Airbnb again (this time without the bread). Allie and I decided to check out a pub that was inspired by universities in the USA, so Sarah held down the fort while we went on a nighttime adventure. We saw David and the Duomo at night, ate gelato rounds five and six, and found t-shirts from our favorite universities hanging on the ceiling of the pub! There wasn’t one from WKU and we were unprepared, so we will have to sign one and send one with the next Harlaxton class.

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Romies Roamin’ (on Daylight Saving Time)

We had to wake up super early the next morning to catch our train to Rome. When Allie and I woke up, we felt like total trash from all the gelato we’d eaten the last few days. My face looked and felt horrible (dairy probs) and my stomach was protesting every decision I’d made in the last 48 hours, but there was no time to let myself feel the pain. We hopped on the first train out of Florence and headed for the legendary and historic city of Rome!

Our first stop in Rome was our hostel, called the Rose B&B. It was the sketchiest place I had to sleep all semester, and it was honestly the only time I was even slightly concerned for the safety of my friends and me. We got there early so our beds weren’t ready, but we were able to drop off our stuff and go to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We came back after our official check-in time, and the beds still weren’t ready. We took our time walking to lunch at Pasta Chef (classy Italian Fazzolis?), and when we came back over an hour later, the beds still weren’t ready. They finally got them ready while we sat there and waited to take a nap. I am pretty positive it was an all-female hostel, but the owner was a man who slept in his office and barged into the room anytime he wanted to. The convenience of its location, in my opinion, is not worth it.

About the Colosseum, though: of all the times I’ve said ‘I probably screamed’ in this blog before, this one is the most true because I know for a fact there was a lot of speechlessness and whisper-screaming. I love history, and I had never seen anything at this level of historical significance before. I was like a kid in a candy store full of Roman arches. We hung out with a very photogenic seagull before walking around and reading up on all the history of the structure. I am absolutely convinced the Romans were aliens.

After the hostel bed fiasco, we finally got to take a nap. When we woke up, we went to the most historically significant location on earth—Trevi Fountain, the very same fountain Lizzie McGuire herself made a wish at in 2003. We all made wishes and immediately got more gelato (have you lost count yet?). We spent the rest of the day roaming around until stopping for dinner and turning in early. We’re not really nightlife people, if you hadn’t noticed.

We were nervous to fall asleep for a few reasons. Number one, we still weren’t sure about this hostel situation. Number two, we had to be up super early the next day to beat the line at the Vatican. Number three, Daylight Saving Time was starting that night at 2 am. These things didn’t really keep us up, but the other girls in the hostel sure did! They talked with the lights on until they went out for the night two hours later. I was finally able to fall asleep for two seconds before they came back and talked some more. To try to defeat the DST problem, we set one of our phones back manually just in case the time didn’t change. This was a mistake.

The next morning, we woke up at 5:30 am to get ready to head to the Vatican. None of us are Catholic or have any special beliefs about the Pope, but when in Rome, am I right? We quietly got all packed up—in the dark, without speaking—much to the annoyance of the girls who had kept us awake for hours the night before. I’m not bitter. We got to the metro station that took us to the Vatican, and that was when we found out we’d actually gotten up at 4:30 am and no trains were running for 30-40 minutes. We were very confused and asked our Harlaxton friends and staff (to which we got no real responses—thanks again y’all! Again, not bitter), but ultimately decided to stay awake and continue on with our day. We got to the Vatican super early and took the longest possible route to get to the entrance. Since it was super early, we had to wait outside of McDonald’s to get a small breakfast and hot coffee to help us brave the chilliness. We waited in line for an hour longer than we thought we had to at the Vatican, which was how we found out what time it really was. We saw the Sistine Chapel, which was so beautiful I could have cried. We did not see the Pope, but I wish we had. If you’re reading this, I think you are the realest, Frankie!

After we left the Vatican, we went to a cool café that had a printer for customers to use! We had to print our plane tickets, so that wasn’t just a super random observation about the café. We got pizza for lunch (RIP to my love of Italian food). We still had time to kill before our flight, so we went back to Trevi Fountain to people watch while eating our eighth and final round of gelato. We checked out of our hostel and got the heck back to Harlaxton!

Italia, This Is How I Feel About Ya

Despite our hostel situation, Rome was my favorite stop on our Italian getaway. Florence, at the time, had an overwhelming amount of tourists, although I understand that the tables have turned now that summer has arrived. Venice will forever be the home of the best lemon cookies I will ever eat in my life. I’m telling you people, these things are shocking. I honestly have had stomach problems every time I eat tomato-based foods since day three of Italy, which is sad because spaghetti used to be my favorite food. HUGE ‘used to be’. I’m a total foodie, so I expected more from my Italian food adventures after building it up my entire life, but remember I was trying to ball on a budget. In the end I was just on a budget (not a whole lot of ballin’). I learned that eight cups of gelato in four days is too many, and four cups in one day is very detrimental to a person’s health and self-confidence (I’m taking horrible acne for a month, friends). I honestly wouldn’t have wanted to be in Italy with anyone else—aka, choose your travel buddies wisely, because they can make or break your trip! Thanks, Allie and Sarah, for making mine!

Bonus!!! Pictures of all 8 rounds of Gelato

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