You may have been wondering where I have been for the past few weeks.  Well, a week or so ago, I had the pleasure of traveling to Italy with my older sister and my best friend.

We covered three cities in a week, the cities being Milan for two days, Florence for two days, and Venice for the last three days.  The flight over to Europe from O’Hare was quite satisfying, the three of us taking sleeping pills and resting all 8 hours on the plane before having our layover in Copenhagen.  We got a kick out of ordering coffee and eating a Danish Danish.

We then hopped on our direct flight from Copenhagen to Milan, and from the moment our flight ended, our Italian adventure had officially begun.  For those next few days, we were stunned by everything, from the architecture of the Castello Sforzesco…

… to the Escher exhibit in the city’s central museum…

… to the staggering amounts of graffiti that we found across the city!

Milan was truly spectacular, but then it came time to ride the train to Florence.  While Milan was mainly cosmopolitan, Florence had a more historic feel to it.  There were many beautiful sights in Firenze, such as the magical piazzas…

… to the view from the famous Ponte Vecchio…

… and did I mention that we saw David??

After spending two days in Florence, we hopped on a train to our final destination: Venice, the city of romance, gondolas, and canals.  From the moment we first stepped out of the train station, we were dazzled by the old architecture and vaporettos that whirred by.  As we spent the last three days of our trip in Venice, it was hard to get over the sights from the bridges we found…

… and we also got to live out one of the most coveted dreams in the world and ride on a gondola!

Venice was truly beautiful, and it was a pity to hop on a water taxi on our last morning in Italy.  Although it turned out to be not much of a pity after all, because we ended up getting one heck of a final view while leaving the city!

I have to say that overall, after our fantastic trip, our hectic time at the Venice airport, our tiring layover in Stockholm, and finally, our long wait back in the customs line back at O’Hare, everything couldn’t have been more perfect.  Cheers to Italy, and cheers to more traveling ahead!