G & G’s GOT Jams!!!

Feb 24

Hello everyone! Let me apologize for my radio silence last weekend, I was busy preparing for my three midterms I had. I did have time for a little fun though, and got my nose pierced! This was my first cartilage piercing so it did hurt more than expected, but it has been healing quite nicely! Yaya suggested maybe she should get one too… Anyone want to chaperone that while I’m over here??

Feb 19

As soon as midterms ended, I began packing for our adventure, dubbed “G & G’s GOT Jams” 1. For alliteration purposes, 2. Because it was me and Gabby, 3. Because somehow we planned an entire 5 day trip around going to see a filming location of Game of Thrones. With the main theme song downloaded on our phones and our bags packed, we first headed to Rome, Italy. We flew in Wednesday evening, settled into our Airbnb, ate our first pasta dinner and jaunted over to the Colosseum. Gabby and I definitely made a habit of going to see monuments in the dark, our pictures have way less people!!

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Feb 20

Gabby, being game to do anything, allowed me to convince her Wednesday morning before we left that we should sign up for a Vespa sidecar tour around the city on Thursday. So, we met our guide at 9am and hopped in our red Vespa to explore!! I’m very glad we caught ourselves before accidentally booking the much cheaper “Vespa rental self-driven tour” as we may not have made it out alive.

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Now, you may ask, how did I get my legs into the sidecar? God only knows. But we did it, switching back and forth between the sidecar and the seat behind the driver for our 4 hour tour of the big sights of Rome. Unbeknownst to us, Vespa sidecars do not really exist and the owner of this tour company had them specially designed and made in the factory outside of Rome. Because of this, there were LOTS of paparazzi taking pictures as we drove around. So many, in fact, that I’m probably going to be featured in more than just this blog post from the weekend.

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After a delightful lunch of calamari, pizza, and cannoli at Il Mercato Centrale, we met up with a group of friends for a pasta making class. We headed out to the burbs, and walked through a Carnaval festival on the way to the restaurant.

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Let the pasta making commence! After our wine tasting of a white and a red from the Frascati region, we mixed, kneaded, cut, and sauced our own noodles into a DELICIOUS meal!

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Feb 21

Friday we ventured out to some Roman sites we had not yet seen on our Vespa tour, such as the Roman forum, the Spanish steps, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. And man, did we get our steps in, 10 miles! We decided to tackle the Roman metro system as to avoid a 2.5 mile walk home from Vatican City, which we did with much success!

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Feb 22

Saturday morning, Gabby wrote a lab report and I planned our self-guided tour of Old Town Dubrovnik in the airport. With the gate only announced an hour before takeoff, we got stuck in a huge passport control line and had to run to catch our flight to Dubrovnik. It was a CLOSE ONE! We have no kind words for the Fiumicino airport…. but we made it! We bussed to Old Town and RAN to Fort Lovrijenac for sunset. PERFECT TIMING! Fort Lovrijenac is a fortress that Game of Thrones filmed many scenes of the Red Keep in. Star power! We made it just in time for some amazing pictures of the city.

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Feb 23

Making the most of our 24 hours in Dubrovnik, we got up at 7:30 to eat breakfast at a park overlooking Fort Lovrijenac and Old Town. A quite nutritious breakfast of Pringles, premade croissants, oranges, and “shake it shake it”-brand cappuccinos. We got into Fort Lovrijenac to explore right when it opened at 9am, and we were the only people inside! It pays to travel during off-season for sure. After the Fort, we walked the 1.2 miles of city walls around Old Town, stopping every 30 feet for another picture of the SPECTACULAR views of the city and the ocean. It was absolutely breathtaking!

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The whole part of Old Town Dubrovnik is a protected UNESCO site which is why it was spotlessly clean and amazingly upkept. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of Daenerys’ dragons while we were around, heard they were taking a vacation.

And as if we hadn’t seen enough, the way our flights worked out we had a 6 hour layover in Barcelona before an overnight bus back to Madrid. Seeing that we couldn’t just spend this time in the airport, we hit the ground running. We saw two of Gaudí’s apartments, La Sagrada Familia, la Arc de Triompf, AND went to the beach before crashing at the bus station.

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While I can’t say we necessarily enjoyed our 7 hour bus ride home at 12am… I CAN say that I absolutely loved spending this crazy long weekend with Gabby exploring the Mediterranean. We had an awesome time geeking out about Game of Thrones, seeing as many monuments as we could in the dark, and eating as many carbs as we possible could!

Now, back to studying for one more midterm and finalizing a Spanish project for me… I will be staying in Madrid this weekend and visiting winery for a vineyard tour and tasting on Saturday, so stay tuned!

Love you all so so much,

Grace xx