Italy Trip: Getting to Rome

Starting May 28th, the day after my little sister's 16th birthday, Errol and I embarked on the trip of a lifetime! After months of planning and saving up, I was excited for my FIRST trip to Europe: 2 weeks in Italy. We would spend it in four cities - Rome, Greve in Chianti, Florence, and Venice.

Errol's mom dropped us off at the airport very early (4AM!). Looking back at these pictures of the beginning of the trip, we look quite refreshed. While the trip was a dream, it was also pretty exhausting!

The schedule of events:
Orlando (MCO) --> New York City (JFK): 6AM-8:30AM
JFK --> Moscow (SVO): 2:20PM-7:45AM (Russian time, 9 hours total)
SVO --> Rome (FCO): 9AM (Russian time) - 10:45AM (Italy time), total 3 hours

First time on a Russian airline, and I must say we didn't like the plane food all that much. Sorry, Russia! I hope to someday have some of their true delicacies, and not through air travel.

BUT, they did have a TV for everyone with some good movie selections! Tried to sleep as much as possible, but still managed to watch The Hobbit, Tangled, and Pirates of the Caribbean :)

By the time we cleared customs, got our backpacks (which we gladly checked for free through Aeroflot), and figured out our next move it was around 1PM.

First step was to purchase a ticket from the airport to the Termini Train Station in order to walk to our hotel. There's lots of places to buy tickets (bigletti) so we just picked whatever looked most official (many tobacco [tabacchi] stores sell tickets too). 

It's a €19 ticket on the Leonardo Express train to the Termini. There are other trains with stops but we didn't want to take the risk, with our first time riding (more on train travel later... it's quite simple!). Even with no stops it's still about a 30 minute ride. 

Hotel Corallo was the first place! (I'll have a separate post about Rome housing)

We refused to let jetlag get to us, but 3 hours of napping later we felt quite refreshed. Not wanting to waste the entire day, we set off walking around. We found a place for dinner that was empty because it was only 6PM, and Italians eat a couple of hours later. There's one way to look like a tourist!

It was a Napoli pizza (mozzarella and anchovies) on for dinner along with 250 mL white wine and an Italian beer (birra). A lovely first day in this amazing city. 

Review: Earring Wardrobe Class at Ornamentea

In Raleigh, NC there is a charming green building that contains the all the supplies you need to create beautiful and unique jewelry. 

At Ornamentea, there are walls of beads, enamel powder, metals, and so much more! One could read get lost in all of it, but luckily they have classes for beginners like me. As part of their "Wire Working and Chain Maille" courses, a friend and I went to Earring Wardrobe class with 2 of our professors as part of a bid we won at the UNC ESOP Senate Auction. 

We worked through pre-made kits to create 5 earrings. Each place setting contained everything we needed, very nicely spread.  

We learned the roles of each of these for different pliers: round nose, needle nose, flat nose, and cutting nose. Above the pliers are is a metal file, and below is a ruler that we used a few times to measure lengths of wires.

Earring 1: This first set, we learned how to make a wrapped loop, which I felt was the most complicated one. Overall, I think it turned out well :)

Earring 2: These were confetti earrings, not meant to match, which bothered some people. But when put together they make a pretty color palate. These were more simple, with the skill taught of opening and closing loops. 

Earring 3: The wrapped loop skills came in handy when we learned how to double wrapped loop through the teardrop bead. This was my favorite color combination! 

Earring 4: It was time to learn how to free form wires and make J loops (for when you don't have pinhead wires). This was definitely more difficult to do, but eventually got to the shape I was satisfied with. Key point: don't stop moving through the wire to keep smooth. We hammed the wires a bit afterwards to help keep its shape. 

Earring 5: Saved the best for last! This one taught us the fun effect of texture hammering. Using the round end, we hammered the round copper sheets on one side to create the textured part on the other. We used a small metal hole punch once the effect was complete. This was another free formed hook, but this time we used a Sharpie pen to create the loop - much easier! 

Overall, it was a lovely experience that I would definitely recommend! It's a quick 3 hours that you can take your mother, daughter, and best friend after dinner and drinks. Thanks to a skilled instructor with clear explanations, I learned some basic skills that I would love to use to create some of my own jewelry. Now I find myself look at earrings I buy and think, "I could make that!". 

Their websites:
Ornamentea Website
Ornamentea Facebook
Ornamentea YouTube

End of one vacay, start of another!

After the end of a grueling semester, I won't lie and say I didn't want to spend the past couple of weeks on my own to recuperate. But after spending the last 3 weeks working for hours and [literally] laying in bed for hours on end, I think I am fully ready for the next few weeks to come: backpacking in Italy!

Getting from North Carolina to Florida was an adventure in itself. My flight was at 3:15PM, but went to the airport at 10AM to catch a ride with a friend who was also flying that day. It was fine, had some shows to watch and some reports to write and edit. Around 1PM I was getting excited to eat adobo and sinagang at home for dinner, and even skipped lunch to keep the appetite.

Also around 1PM, I got an email to check the status of my flight and I saw this:

Apparently, the plane we were originally going to use had a malfunction bad enough to warrant needing another one, which was coming from Baltimore. Lucky for me, we all got $100 vouchers for the inconvenience. Woohoo!

There was one final delay to 8:55PM, and I finally landed in Orlando at 10:45PM. My mom and sister were waiting for me at the airport, and then finally got home around 1AM after waiting for checked bags.

FINALLY! Good bye, North Carolina, see you in a month!