Reporting LIVE from Athens, Greece !

YES I SAID ATHENS! Exciting right? Well it's our Spring Break, finally & my roommates & I booked a 10 day trip with Bus2Alp's called "Greece Island Hopping". We hit 3 different island's in a 10 day span. We are currently on island number 2, which is of course... Athens!  We just got here today & there's so much history to see. We took a bus tour around the city to see all the places that we want to visit tomorrow when we are fully rested.

The first place we hit during our Spring Break was called Corfu Island. We stayed in a hostel called the Pink Palace. It was all PINK (my favorite color). The hostel through a Pink Toga party where we had a blast! Here's a picture of me in my toga.

Pink Toga Party !

The next day we had a choice of riding a "Booze Cruise" on a pink ship that took us to a private island and to a bat cave to swim or to ride the ATV's through the island and pretty much sight see. We originally wanted to do the cruise but it was packed already so we rode the ATV's which was extremely fun BUT made me very sore. Here are some pictures from that adventure.

ATV ready.

Beautiful Beach.

That's pretty much my Spring Break for NOW ! I will hopefully update you guys when I get back to Rome with how it ended. Also I'm going to try to post about our trip to Venice & Barcelona.

...with love, 

Erin<3

Sick ...

Overall Rome has been an exciting experience so far! But I have bad news... I am SICK ! I've been sick for about 2 weeks now & I don't know how to get rid of this nasty cough that I have. There are days where the cough isn't as bad as it was before but then it goes right back to being bad the next day. I've been to the farmacia to get something for it but it doesn't seem like it is working !

Okay, enough about my cold! Let's talk about Rome so far. It's pretty much everything that I didn't expect! I was kind of scared to come over here because people were constantly warning me about pick pocketers and making sure you stuff does not get stolen! Now, I know I have to be aware of my surroundings and always make sure my belongings are safe but not once have I felt that I was in a bad place or I was going to get robbed.

The people here are extremely nice, some are aggressive but overall they are nice! There are a lot of people that speak English here so it makes it easier for me and my roommates to communicate and get around the city.

Tomorrow Jen, Nathalie, and I will be going on a day trip to Venice! It's supposed to be freezing I guess I have to put on extra layers. I hope to take a lot of pictures and upload them on this site but it's just hard to keep up with this blog & live in the exciting city of Rome !


TTYL.... from Rome ,
Erin ! <3

Roma !

I've been here for 3 weeks now ! I love it! I've been meaning to write in my blog for a couple of days now but I always forgot. My roommates are Nathalie , Jennifer , Sarah , and Mary and I love them all. Our second week in Rome we went on a "neighborhood tour" that took us through the center of Rome where we got to see some Ruins, the Coliseum, the place where Caesar died (which is now a pet sanctuary) , and we also got to eat Gelato's. I'm hoping that we get to see more soon but I haven't adjusted to the time change yet.  I will try to post pictures later on this week !

-Erin Hager

And We're Off !

            It’s here! The day I leave for Rome, Italy is finally here. I’ve been waiting for this day ever since Garrett told me I was accepted into Carlow’s Study Abroad Program. I’m having mixed feelings about this trip I am about to take to Rome for 4 months. One moment I am excited and ready to go, then I afraid that I will be homesick because I’ve never been this far away from home. Usually when I am away from home it’s somewhere where if there were an accident my family could come and help me.  Luckily my anxiousness always stays the same. I’m ready to learn about a new culture and how to adapt pretty much on my own, without my family.

            Right now I am on the plane heading towards Rome. I have only gotten maybe 2-3 hours of sleep since I’ve been on this plane. As I said I am anxious, maybe that’s the reason I can’t sleep. Our flight has been a smooth ride for the most part. We hit a small amount of turbulence but it didn’t phase me on bit. Nathalie is clearly jet lagged and her eyes are blood shot red. She keeps saying that in order for us to stay on a good sleeping schedule we can’t go to sleep until later on tonight, which will be hard being that we’ve been up for almost the whole day.

…..The plane is about to land. I will complete this later… Or just leave it at this, and start a new post.

Signed,

Erin Hager

(I wrote this post on January 24, 2011)