Final Plans for Italy

Tuesday, 30 August 2011

With 2 weeks before we go to Italy, we have everything all planned out. Karrie and i worked on the itinerary for a long time. We've changed the places, the dates and mode of transportation several times.

We looked at options like going to Pisa but found out that the leaning tower is the only thing to see there and not worth making a special stop. We planned on going to Milan but then heard that there's nothing to do and the people are rude. Going to Pompeii or the Amalfi Coast would have been cool but we figured we are going to be sick of seeing ancient ruins and the Amalfi Coast is more of a city to drive around, not walk.

The 10 day schedule that we came up with is great. For example the first day we arrive in Rome we are going to the Vatican. That's because we noticed that September 27th is World Tourism Day and admission is free.

Last week we all purchased our 3 day Eurail passes and vouchers for the trains. We will be taking the train to Florence twice and Venice once. We felt like the train was the best way to travel because it takes us right to the center of the cities without having to deal with traffic and the hassles of renting a car. Plus after a full day of walking it will be nice to maybe sleep on the train ride back.
Here is the itinerary for the entire trip. The prices on right are in US dollars $ and Euros €. As of right now the conversion is $1.5 = 1€. We had to guess at some of the prices like €40 for dinner. After reading about what it might cost, we decided to guess a high amount. I'm really hoping that it won't cost that much, but we felt that it would be better to predict higher than lower.

This sheet has been changed and updated many times as we were planning the trip, but for now this is the plan.


Days 1-5

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Days 6 - 10

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For each day we are traveling we also have a map. Click on the map to see the image or click on the link to see a more detailed view of the route using Google Maps.

Day 2 - Rome (Google Maps)

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Day 3 - Rome
Day 4 - Florence
Day 5 - Rome
Day 6 - Florence
Day 7 - Rome
Day 8 - Venice

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Great Urban Race in Chicago

Friday, 8 July 2011

July 23 in CHICAGO
Similar to the TV show The Amazing Race, The Great Urban Race is where teams of 2 race around a city trying to complete 12 clues/challenges. I went with Karrie, her mom, and her sister.
We printed off a bunch of maps like this. Although we didn't really use them, mostly we used the GPS on our phones.

Also we got a 24 hour bus and train pass, which we did use a lot.

Along with the pass and maps we each had a back pack with lots of water and some other random stuff.

When the race started we were each given the "clue" sheet. We had looked online at previous races to get an idea of what type of clues they asked. This time it seemed like there wasn't really anything to solve on the sheets. The questions were like "go here" or "find this statue." Previous races had things like riddles or math problems you had to solve to know where you were suppose to go.

I emailed some people a week before the race and asked if they'd help. My friends Jill and Adam did. So right after the race started i took a picture of the clue sheet and emailed it to them. They would email me back with answers and addresses. We called Jill a bunch of times and she sent us a google map with all of the points on it and what was the quickest route to take. That was our biggest problem. Since we didn't know the city, even if we had all the answers we didn't really what order or where to go.

Jill's map she sent us.

Front - questions 1-5

Back - questions 6-12

Everyone was suppose to dress up so we were Sherlock Holmes.

You needed to bring a camera with you to document everything you did. After the race one of the workers went through the questions and you had to show them the picture. Here's a few of them.

Get a picture with someone eating a hot dog.

Picture in front of the Ghirardelli store.

In front of the Roscoe Bike store you had to solve 3 number questions and use those numbers to open up a padlock. Then get a picture under the sign.

Picture of you and two others doing the YMCA

9 person conga line.

The first place team finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes. We finished in 118th place out of 396 teams with 4 hours and 22 minutes. It was a LOT of running.

The next day we were very sore but decided to go walk around the downtown.

Here's the view of the city from the Daman train stop.

My favorite sculpture in the entire world is The Bean. (actually called Cloud Gate) It was raining and thunder storming in the morning so no one was suppose to go near it because it might get struck by lightning.




Then we walked all the way to Navy Pier, stayed there for an hour or so and went up the ferris wheel.

We took a taxi back to the city, stopped a clothes store, then stopped back at the Bean which was now crowded with people.

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