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Monday, August 18, 2014

Three Continents in Two Months!

      My remarkable trip started on June 10th to the "Country of Festivals", India. And the flight was long...14 hours sitting in the same position with no space to stretch your legs was not enjoyable at all. But the excitement of meeting all my relatives, going to beautiful places, and spending seven weeks on foreign land kept me content. We landed and stepped outside the airport and ohh that nasty odor and the heat was awful! It felt as though we were all in this big oven that was warming us up until we melted :( On top of that, we had still landed around 12 in the night! That was when I thought about how the heat would be the next morning when the sun was high above our heads. As the time went by, I realized how different India was. There were many things that I didn't like at all. There was nonstop honking of the vehicles on the road
no matter what time it was. Whenever I walked outside all I would hear is honking noises from every single direction, every single moment! What bothered me was that the vehicles honk for no reason! The roads were a mess. Nobody followed the traffic signals... and it felt like they drove wherever they wanted to, anytime they wanted. Just to walk across the street was chaotic and quite scary. In addition to all that mess, the smell was horrible everywhere! But, the city had its own beauty too. There were so many roadside coconut water shops. I loved drinking the coconut water because it cooled you down and it tasted so good! Trying to cool was hard... but keeping yourself away from mosquitoes was even harder! We kept spraying ourselves with mosquito spray and that seemed to help. The terrace was another amazing thing in Chennai. It was where you could walk on the paved roof of the houses. People used it to dry their clothes there. 
     Next, we went to this place called Ooty high up in the mountains. To go there we had to take an overnight train. The trains had beds but no Air Conditioning, so it was best to sleep near the windows. In Ooty, we went with our entire family...about 30 people! And even though I didn't know many people, I got really close to everyone by the end of the trip. Ooty was entirely composed of thick, lush forests. We all went in Safari Jeeps because there were no roads. This place was really different from Chennai because there were no people, and the weather was cold and foggy. One day, this man came to us and told us that there were some wild elephants wandering around really close to the place we were staying in. A couple of us hurried up and rushed to see the wild elephants. Even though it was getting really dark, we still were interested in seeing the elephants. We carefully walked in the jungle and came to this lake. On the other side of the lake, were two elephants. We slowly sat down so the elephants wouldn't see us. There was a small elephant and another one, likely its
mother. Both were drinking water from the lake. Soon, we decided to head back since it was really dangerous to be in the forest while the sky was pitch black. The next day, I found this skull of a cow on the ground! It was so big and I wanted to know what had killed it and how long ago it would have happened. Since the place was a forest, there were monkeys...everywhere. After few days, we headed back to Chennai but this time on a sleeper bus! I liked the bus better than the train since the beds were clean like a hotel room! Time passed really quickly, having fun with everybody. Before I knew it, we were packing to leave India. It was sad but there was nothing I could do.
   Next, was Europe. Another flight of 11 hours took us to Italy. During the flight, the view from above the clouds were beautiful because the sun was setting and the clouds were like marshmallows. Our first stop is Rome. I thought the city was
gorgeous from the moment I stepped out of the airport. We walked to our hotel and on the way there were many roadside restaurants out on the sidewalks. Cake shops and bakeries were common and they smelled so good when we walked past them. All the buildings were in an old-fashioned style...even though I like it I would never like to live there. There were many churches and were all so pretty but soon I got bored of seeing them. The weather in Italy was no different than India...it was still really hot but not too humid. Next, we went to another country. The smallest country in the whole world, Vatican City. It was really interesting to see the wall all around the country. We spent about 4 hours in Vatican City and we covered the entire country...mainly because it was so small! We went to St.Peter's Basilica, the place where the Pope speaks from, and the famous Sistine Chapel. In Rome, the water is so abundant that there were water fountains that poured cold drinkable water all day and night! It never stopped because there was no way to stop it!! All the tourists kept cool by catching water in their caps and then putting it on their heads. The entire city of Rome had a ground made out of medium sized rocks..so your feet would start paining easily after walking for a couple of hours! We came across a couple of funny names like "Gastronomia" which meant bread store ;D And the citizens there didn't know any English but, they were very helpful for tourists. Store after store, there were so many of my favorite snacks: so many types of cheese, olives, pasta, and gelati!! <3<3<3<3 Gelati was my absolute
favorite there. There were so many flavors and it was different than normal ice cream. Gelati was more like icy and slushy. We spent our last day in Rome at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. The Colosseum was wonderful from the outside but I felt disappointed when we went inside. It wasn't how I thought it would be, like a stadium. The Colosseum didn't have any rows of stone seats inside. It was just the outside that was spectacular. Then, the Roman Forum was incredible because of the large pillars and how much work the people long time ago went through to build them. 
     It was time to leave to Pisa by train. We traveled by Trenitalia, and those trains were clean and looked so much like airplanes! The only thing worth seeing in the entire city of Pisa was the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Personally,this was my favorite of my entire trip because of its dramatic lean. After taking some funny pictures at the Leaning Tower, we left to Cinque Terre, a beach side village. The train that took us there went by the beach coastline and it was so fascinating to see the beachside houses and the rocks on the beaches. On the next day, we went to Florence and saw the climbed up a hill to Piazzale Michelangelo to see the view of the city and the sunset. Venice was another big hit of the trip. The entire city had "roads" which were all waterways. The main public transport was water buses and water taxis! It was really cool to see a bus station on the water. We went to an island in Venice called Burano. Burano is famous
for lace making and its brightly colored houses. Then, to get to Murano, famous for glass making, we took the water bus from Burano. All the names of the places confused me so much because there were so many small islands in Venice and many of the names were similar. Our last stop in Venice was the Lido Beach. This was another island which fully had beaches with black sand! The water was warm and there were no big waves so many tourists swam in the salty water. Finally, our last city of the trip, Naples. My first impression of Naples was disappointing. There were no tourists, the city was empty and wasn't lively at all. 9 out of 10 stores were closed. The entire city seemed deserted. The only thing I was looking forward to there was Pompeii. When we went to Pompeii, I thought it was not as great as I thought it would be. It definitely wasn't worth standing in a line for 2 hours in the hot sun. There were only three plaster casts of people...and I was expecting much more. But, even those two plaster people were impressive. Soon, we were on the way back to North America. After a flight of 15 hours we landed in SFO Airport after 2 months. I loved this vacation so much. Italy was sooo beautiful and unique. My favorite place in Italy was Pisa so if you ever plan a trip there, don't miss out on the Leaning Tower. Make a stop at Pisa..even though the only attraction there is the Leaning Tower! Thanks for reading and please comment your thoughts:) Waiting for next summer...only 10 months away<3<3<3<3