I've realized that starting my journey with Greece kind of ruined the rest of my trip. Greece is so beautiful that seeing it first has made me not very impressed with what I'm seeing now. However, I've been in Italy for a week now and I am really enjoying it!
Unfortunately I did have an awful first day in Italy because I spent the entire day at the hospital in Rome. I was feeling really sick when I got there and figured since I haven't seen any kind of doctor since February, maybe I should go get checked up. Nobody at the entire hospital spoke or understood a single word of English which was very scary. They were drawing blood, did a chest x-Ray and a couple more things and I had no clue what was going on. Fortunately, I did not have any serious problems. They wrote me a prescription for something and since this is Europe, I left the hospital without paying a single penny (which was amazing).
After my day from hell in Rome, I took a train to La Spezia which is in the Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is a beautiful region on the ocean which is full of little port towns. The towns all slightly resemble each other and they're all very beautiful. I visited 2 of the towns and really liked them.
I also spent some time recovering from my crazy time in Ios and took advantage of having a room to myself for 3 days.
After La Spezia for 3 nights, I took a train up to Florence.
I really love Florence. It's a beautiful city and I've met a lot of very friendly people at my hostel. I think my favorite thing might be the fact that there's a nice pool at my hostel where I've been spending most of my time. I have explored the city, however, and very much enjoyed it.
Tomorrow I leave for Venice where I'll be staying 4 nights.
I'm in a strange emotional state at the moment because my trip is coming to an end in 3 weeks. I honestly can't believe that in 3 short weeks I'm going to be back home sleeping in my own bed, eating home cooked food, and not meeting amazing new people on a daily basis. I also happen to despise Chicago so I'm actually kind of dreading going home.
I would love to extend my trip another month but Europe is expensive and we're about to be in $40,000 of debt a year for the next 4 years for college so I know that coming home is the better option financially.
I am having the time of my life here and will really really really miss traveling around but I know I just need to take advantage of my last 3 weeks in Europe!