Last Stop: España!

Here I am checking in again. A few days have slipped by again between posts, so I'll try to go over our events since the last post.

First though, I've added some more pictures to previous posts. Also, we've found it interesting that lots of backpackers are carrying great big packs, and if it wasn't clear, Brady and I only have our school backpacks. We're kind of proud of that. We certainly came out with a "camping" mindset: pack light and wear the same shirt and pants lots of times!

We enjoyed our second day in Florence and were able to see some more great sites. In the morning we went on a walking tour of the city, and in the afternoon we went back and spent more time looking at things that seemed the most interesting to us. Among the sites we got to see was Michelangelo's David. Wednesday morning we headed by train down to Naples. When we arrived we hurried out to Pompeii to see what we could. After looking around for a bit, we went back to Naples where we started searching for a good pizza place (we had learned that Naples is supposedly the birthplace of pizza) and a place to stay for the night--and yes, in that order! As it turned out, we stumbled upon one of the best places in Naples for pizza; when we checked in later at our hostel the manager figured we must have been in Naples for a bit of time to have found that place, so he was surprised to find out we had only been in town for about 30 minutes. The pizza was indeed fantastic!

The next morning we headed back up to Rome. When we got to Rome, we decided, of course, that since we were in Rome, we would do as the Romans do, so we first set out to find togas. Just kidding. Highlights of our time in Rome were visiting the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Ara Pacis, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Vatican Museum. And while Rome wasn't built in a day, we nearly saw it all in one. No, actually it took us two. Any guesses of what our last thing to do was as we prepared to leave Italy for Spain? One last stop at a gelato shop!

Early Saturday morning we headed to the airport, where we caught a flight to Barcelona, where we found ourselves tonight. Here in Barcelona we have enjoyed beginning to see the city, spending some time at the beach, attending church with one of the Barcelona wards this morning, seeing some pretty intense street celebrating last night when FC Barcelona (Barcelona's soccer team) found out they were the league champions, and watching the Magic Fountain of Montjuic water show, which will probably be one of the highlights of Barcelona--the show was really impressive!