___s i e n n a ;

I consider myself an eternal student, forever interested in broadening my horizon. I am versatile & articulate. I crave frequent change, variety, engaging new situations & meeting new people. I am fascinated by life's seemingly endless journey & the...

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3 days in Costa Rica ;

                     When one trip gets cut short, go on another ...

After cutting your Europe trip short and coming home to your friend in dire need of a vacation ... why not, right?

The perks of being on companion passes/flying non rev; being able to fly domestically free and internationally cheap but having to make your way across the states to get to your destination which can include many flights but ALL WORTH IT!! 

Yessss to having your own row on a night flight

"Ladies and Gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank You."

Landing at your destination in the middle of the night and finding out your hotel's shuttle stopped running already sigh BUT! a very nice taxi guy comes to your rescue and actually doesn't mind waiting (almost 30mins) for you to get currency exchange from your hotel to pay him (at no extra cost!) the travel gods have indeed blessed us! 

Day 1

Off to our first days adventure: Manuel Antonio National Park Drive Time: 2:38 

✔ Goodnights sleep ✔ Made it to breakfast on time ✔ Car rented

Hotel Complementary Breakfast

After what felt like a whole day but in reality an hour (give or take) of driving with views of flat nothing lands, we finally made it to the coast. With another hour (or so) on the road still, this time with views of different towns on the way

Not taking into account how long it was going to take (or how many tolls we had to go through OMG!) to get to our destination. Upon arriving and parking we were able to score the last guided time slot, not our original plan but would definitely recommend as we wouldn't have been able to see any sloths (main reason for being there HA!) on our own without the guides telescope and eagle eye for spotting them wayyyy up in the trees. There was a section of the walk where we found monkey central. There was monkeys everywhere jumping from branch to branch, fighting, eating, hanging around, and following people. At the end of the hot, humid, sweaty walk through the jungle we were prized with a wonderful beach ... with a gaze of raccoons ... breaking into someones backpack haha.

Day 2

Todays Adventures: Hanging Bridges, Volcano and Tabacón Drive Time: 3:08

After figuring out that everything (we wanted to do) was FAR! (from where we were staying) and everyone telling us how crazy we were for only being there 3 days, we decided to head out early to make up some long drive time. What we didn't account for was waze getting us lost on a completely different mountain than we were suppose to be. Finally after getting stopped up the hill for passing herds and going in circles and numerous fails at attempting to get directions from the towns people, who laughed at us which we now understand why, HAHA! 

We ended up back at the gas station that we had stopped to gas up at, an hour prior, and asked the attendant for directions, long behold had we made a left turn at that gas station earlier we wouldn't have been lost in the wrong mountain. On a better note, we were able to come across the beautiful bridge that crosses the La Paz waterfall.

Oh!! What fun it is to be lost, yet again! ... passing the entrance to the hanging bridges TWICE brought us to crossing a bridge that over sees the Lake Arenal, the largest landlocked body of water in the country. Finally figuring our way back and taking the chance of following another car down a horrible rocky road to say the least, we’re on the right track and arrived to our destination. 

There is a truck in front if you can't tell through all the rocky road dust lol

After picking our route for the sky walk we’re off to hike, we decided we were going to make it to the first two bridges and head back so we would still have time to make it to our next destination (since getting lost numerous times took a pretty good chunk out of our schedule).

Now off to Tabacón hot springs ... finally a place that we didn't get (too) lost looking for HA! For about $90 USD/ea we were able to get pool and hot springs access, with locker key and towels. And let me tell you!!! the hot springs were AMAZING!! I personally love hot showers, so naturally I'd love the hot springs.

Day 3

Todays Adventure: Puerto Viejo Limón Drive Time: 3:41 

Of course we would leave the longest drive for the last day ... which by the way that drive time up there is a joke! Not only did waze send us on thee longest route ever! we were rerouted a handful of times to avoid traffic which we ended up in regardless. **Travel damper Alert** Getting pulled over in another country and getting a ticket (which thankfully we somehow were able to talk our way out) is a HUGE damper on your mood especially when you still have 3:41 to go, AFTER the 3:41 you've already driven (get it? no? ok, well its a LONG FUCKING DRIVE!). Of course I can't realllllly say how the whole situation went with the cop, but lets just say the sayings of Mexico and their Cop$ worked. 

Then of course theres the whole driving through the mountain that only has ONE LANE! and a heap of big rigs. By the way driving back through that mountain at night is NO FUN! theres no street lights, its pitch black, lots of curves, and holy hell don't let there be fog!! 

Finally arriving to the coast the drive is beautiful with the glimpse of the sea that is literally sands away from the road, amazing! (and reminds me of parts of Samoa). 

When we made it to the town, we pulled over and parked right on the sandy beach to admire the caribbean view. A few ways down the atmosphere of the area is one id imagine myself enjoying. The beach is right there, the hostels look like fun vibrant places, restaurants by the dozen. We rented bikes and rode around until we found a spot to enjoy the caribbean ocean. The sand is scorching hot but the water is amazing. I really wish we had spent more time there. 

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1 day in Siena ;

The bus ride is full of beautiful Tuscany views of green, green, and more greenery. The ride wasn't as bad as I thought it’d be. Once we arrived, we took a taxi to our hostel, checked in, we were booked for separate male/female dorms but were given a private room and called it a night. 

In the morning the hostel siena came with breakfast, which being American our breakfast with hotel stays are completely different, especially since we over eat. We came to learn that European breakfast is simple: (freshly baked) donut or croissant with jelly/jam or Nutella (swoon *emoji heart eyes haha), juice/coffee, and cereal period haha like I said SIMPLE! yet the best bleakest ever! I’d eat that everyday if I could. 

Piazza del Campo

Sienna freezing in Siena 

Duomo di Siena

After we ate and watched a bit of the news that was playing in the dinning area we headed out to the bus stop where we were going to go in to town. We found ourself at a farmer market. Walking around in the coldest weather so far. On our way back to the hostel we stoped at a hole in the wall place that was selling pizza with fires! as toppings, amazing! haha We made it back to the same bus stop that we got off at and waited, and waited, and waited haha we decided to walk it as far we can till we can catch another bus. We got on the buss, in route we noticed it was making a turn opposite to where we needed, so we got off and had to walk the long way around to finally get back to our hostel. 

Re-Route

After discussing our current funds and how we were going to make it to the end of our trip that we still had a few weeks left of, and the weight of the bombing in Brussels (which we were 4 days away from being in), we decided to cut the trip short and head home. Luckily we purchased travel insurance, but we needed to make it back to the original place of our exit tickets which is Athens, Greece.

The next morning we made our way back to the station, bought our bus/train tickets back to Rome. We were fighting a small window for everything to fall into perfectly timed place. Of course the train hit a slow crawl and eventually stopped for about 20mins but we made it to Rome, and figured out which bus to take to the airport. I wasn't able to purchase the tickets online so when we made it to the airport, we had to purchase the tickets which were the last two seats for that flight. 

Back in Athens, we waited to hear from our mum if we were able to catch the flight for that night. We weren't, the next one was the first flight out in the morning. So we spent the night in the airport, which isn't as uncommon as we’d thought seeing as there were lots of people camped out on benches everywhere. We were lucky to snag a spot in a small café with couches near a charging station. We took turns napping and watching over our items. When it came close to our flight time we headed in to security. 

We made it to pairs our connecting flight back to the states, but of course immigration line was a shit show. The time is getting closer and closer yet we weren't getting any closer in line. Finally making it through we hauled ass to our gate allllllllll the way on the other side. Luckily we weren't the only ones stuck in that line and they were holding the flight for everyone running behind. Wish I’d known that before running my legs numb haha. 

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4 days in Rome ;

Arriving without further acknowledge of how we were going to get to our destination, rain, and not knowing the trains wouldn’t be running at that time, we made a B line for where everyone else seemed to be going, the taxi line and 70 euros later we made it to our AirBnB.

Day 1

Itinerary: Colosseum, and Trevi Fountain

We found that the little store across the street sold bus/metro tickets from reading reviews of our airbnb. Once we figured out how to catch the bus thats right outside our place of stay to the metro and figuring out how to take the metro to our destination haha was fairly easy. Once we exited the metro station there are little shops, we picked up a slice of pizza and found ourselves right in front of the coliseum, it was like a child on christmas giddily opening gifts. 

We got our tickets to the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill. We didn't have to wait too long in line, maybe 25 mins for the colosseum and less than 5 mins for the forum. We stayed and explored the forum and palatine hill until closing. After we headed over to the Trevi Fountain with a quick stop to admire the Altare della Patria.

The fountain was packed, thee most packed place we’ve yet to encounter. But it is a beauty to see non the less, especially with a cone of (Nutella) gelato! YUMM! 

Day 2

Itinerary: ----

Woke up pretty late, and was still somewhat jet lagged from all the travels so we decided to take the day and catch up on some much needed rest and laundry. 

Day 3

Itinerary: Spanish Steps, and Castle Saint Angelo

Today we’re going to explore more of the town, starting with heading to the Spanish Steps. We got off the metro at Flaminio and walked through a beautiful neighborhood that reminded me of San Francisco. Once we made it to Piazza del Popolo, we hung out for a bit under the obelisk admiring all the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which is amazing to see in ROME. 

When you first arrive to the steps you'll find Fontana della Barcaccia, that reminds me of a boat in a way haha (and after just now looking it up the name translates “fountain of the ugly boat”). There is a part of the fountain that has a small walk way like area where we seen a man step into and splashed himself with water during his run, I thought was pretty neat. Looking up to the spanish steps I’d assume they would be a grand sight when seen at its full glory which we weren't able to see since they were under construction haha but the part of the steps that we were able to climb was a workout with a lovely view of the town and the massive church of Trinità dei Monti.

Moving on we came across the Pantheon which was pretty packed, we weren't able to go inside but we did touch the granite columns which were cold haha. Walking through Rome is such an amazing thing to experience I truly felt like i belonged there forever walking down the streets of Rome ... haha I wish. Coming out of the streets alley ways we made it to the crossing of Castel Sant'Angelo, the bridge is full of all kinds of people, tourist, people selling items, and tour guides. Taking a seat on the curb, looking down at the water bellow and people watching on the bridge was a nice little break. 

Day 4

Itinerary: The Vatican

We made our way to the Vatican, found the line and wooooo let me tellllll you haha that line is longer than any line I've ever seen in my life. We followed the winding line for about 20 mins all the way to the front, good thing we bought our tickets before hand all we had to do was wait for our time slot to get in the security line. Once we were in the museum is HUGE! we spend a good 4 hours just getting to the sistine chapel, which by the way is small! smaller than I had ever imagined it would be ... but AMAZING!!! to be able to stand directly under Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam is such a special feeling. Just thinking of the years this thing has been around, the thought of Michelangelo painting, its a sorrel feeling being under it. 

After we made it to the end there was a cafeteria that we grabbed a snack and headed out to the court yard, it was a bit windy and chilly out but it was nice to sit out and admire the yard. We tried to figure out how to get to St. Peters Basilica from the inside, we ended up going back out and around ... we had to go through a security line to get inside so we decided to just admire from that outside, now I wish we would have went inside even if we were tried from the hours of walking and traffic line just to make it to the chapel but we have a whole day of travel by bus the next day so we headed back to call it a night, theres always the future. 

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10 hours in Santorini

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