Italy: Housing

As we all know, Europe has a plethora of ways to travel on a budget. Nonetheless, it's still expensive! Thanks to our housing fund, we had the opportunity to book a mix of hotels, hostels, and beds and breakfasts (is that how to properly "pluralize" that term? Eh, B&B's!). To save the surprise, I'll hold off on where we are staying for now, and do that post trip.

But here are some things I learned throughout the process:

1) Do LOTS of research before you book a place...

• We used websites like booking.com, hostelworld.com to look up locations
• Once we were matched with places that matched our dates, we looked at the ones with the highest ratings overall and then delved into the individual ratings. Read the ratings, but start with LOWEST and MOST RECENT. I am always skeptical of high praises (cynical, I know). But the longer a rating message is also more trustworthy because it means someone took the effort to provide an honest opinion. Who knows, the praising reviews might be from the owners or someone who was paid to say those things! Again, sorry for the cynicism. 
• Pictures don't necessarily speak a thousand words. Being negative again, I don't trust photos from official websites either. I used tripadvisor.com to get first-hand pictures from real people (as opposed to professional pictures from the website). This is also a great place to read some more reviews, and it will also "rank" the place you're looking at. 

2) Once you've picked a place, go to the official website to make sure the price is the same as you see on the other websites. Sometimes those sites can have a surcharge! 

3) This was supposed to be a list, but I can't really think of more big points. Oops! 

Anywho, the process took a really long time to piece together places we are going in Italy. Errol didn't want to stay in one place for more than a few days, so we are staying in 2-3 places per city! Our strategy is to stay in a hotel the first few days we arrive and leave so that we may be more comfortable before the long travel. Then staying in hostels and B&B's the days in between. The cheapest way to do a hostel is use the dorms, but we will be staying in double rooms with an ensuite bathroom. It's still cheaper than staying in a hotel overall! 

A little teaser preview of a place we are staying in Venice: 

View of the Grand Canal from our hostel! 

Next up: putting together an itinerary 

Italy: Purchasing the Flight

This trip to Italy has morphed from a tag along trip with Errol and his mom, to a romantic two-week excursion with just him and myself. Unfortunately, his mom couldn't go anymore and gave us our blessing as well as funding for housing throughout the trip so we could still go. A wonderful gift that I will forever be grateful for!

Purchasing the flight took a lot of time. First step was to decide on dates! Took a lot of thought because we wanted it to be as early as possible in the summer but we couldn't finalize until I got my summer rotation schedule. I requested July for the rotation, which is likely why I got my first choice. No one wants July! 

Some things I learned in the process: 

1) It's cheaper (if not cheapest) to fly from JFK in NYC. We booked the cheapest possible to JFK and back, instead of using search engines from Orlando to Rome. 

2) Analyze your layover times, try something "off-label" (i.e., not Delta, AA, United, etc.) to get the cheapest flight. We picked a Russian airline that goes to Moscow then Rome. But because the arrival/departure dates were the best, we get to Rome at 10AM and leave Venice at 11PM giving us nearly a whole extra day! 

3) You must be patient to find the ticket that fits the best for your trip. However, once that moment comes, you must have the courage to make the leap! If you plan right, your credit card can handle it. Mine did... just barely!

Next step: Housing

Summertime

Another free moment means another promise to keep up with blogging again. I swear this time to be true (as I always say)!

But really, this past year kicked my butt, and I can honestly say I'm a better person for it, and will hopefully be a better pharmacist too. Unfortunately any mental break I had this past semester all I wanted to do was lay in bed, watch TV, and mindlessly look around Facebook in 3 different tabs.

Some things I did this year:

1) Racked up thousands of Delta Skymiles and Southwest Rewards Points. Glory of pharmacy conferences and a long distance relationship.
2) Took 21 exams + 4 finals in the span of 4 months (minus Spring Break)
3) Somehow got the clutch factor. Three classes this semester ended up with final grades between 89.5 - 90%
4) Learned the significance of "Just keep swimming". Had a few breakdowns this year from the stress, workload, etc. But my friends (and not necessarily willpower) helped get me through because we were all in the same boat together.

But the year is now over, and will just be a distant memory. Because in just a few weeks, Errol and I will be embarking on our first Eurotrip! Two weeks in Italy; I can't wait for you all to share the experience with me!