Tourist

COAT: Forever 21 // DENIM: Topshop // BUTTON-DOWN: h&m // SCARF: from a market in Florence // BOOTIES: from a store in Florence // SUNNIES: Urban Outfitters

I am not a model. On a rare occasion I can strike a pose but this shoot definitely lacked that moment. Anyway, I wanted to do a quick post on what I would label my "tourist" look. I did a lot of sightseeing over my semester in Europe, and this is typically what I would wear. There's not much to it - a nice coat, my favorite denim, and black booties. A good pair of black booties just does it for me and I can justify buying any pair that has a great shape and fit. It was a bit cold on this particular day because Florence has seasons. I added this beautiful red scarf to throw some color onto my monochromatic ensemble. Scarves are great, especially when they actually serve the purpose they are meant to. I am back home in the states now and I hope to get some more outfit posts up soon. Ciao for now.

xx Michelle

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Music: Still loving everything from Tame Impala. 

Autumn in Amsterdam

As my semester in Italy is coming to a close, I have accumulated quite a few photos from my weekends away. Instead of keeping them in my personal archives, over the next couple of weeks I am planning on featuring photos from some of my favorite travels around Europe. I spent a weekend in Amsterdam in mid-October. The leaves were changing colors and the weather was a bit chilly, making it a perfect Autumn weekend. Amsterdam was such a unique city full of canals, unique architecture, and some really cool people. I'll briefly go over what I got up to.
To save on costs, my friends and I stayed outside of the city. Public transportation is my mode of choice for getting around all European cities, but I found Amsterdam's system to be quite confusing and pretty pricey. I would recommend splurging a bit more on accommodation when visiting Amsterdam because we found it to be more difficult than usual to get in and out of the city everyday. As far as food goes, I ate very well in Amsterdam! There was a lot of variety and little cafes on every corner. It was a great place for breakfast which is always nice to find as an American traveling around Europe. Do yourself a favor and try a stroopwafel, as well.
As far as activities, we did a bike tour through Mike's Bikes which I highly recommend! Biking is definitely the way to see the city and I learned a lot about the city history and culture. We went all around the city, my favorite stops being Jordaan and Brouwerij 't Ij brewery, which is in a windmill. If a tour sounds a bit much for you I would recommend just renting bikes on your own as it's fairly inexpensive and such a fun way to get around. You definitely have to be an attentive biker though as the locals get pretty irritated with tourists getting in their way.
Other than the bike tour, we visited the Anne Frank House and the Van Gough Museum. If the Anne Frank House is a must see for you, I would skip the line and come back later at night as it stays open pretty late. The Van Gough Museum was incredibleone of my favorite museums I've visited in Europe. Again, we skipped the line and went pretty late in the evening. If you go for the late route like we did, just make sure you give yourself enough time to see everything before it closes.
Overall, I absolutely adored Amsterdam. I found the city to be incredibly picturesque, the people were lovely, and there was so much to see and do. The dutch seem to be doing a lot of things right and I would love to spend more time in Amsterdam in the future.
Hope you enjoy these travel posts. Talk to you soon.
xx Michelle

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Tunes: To You Alone & All of Them Dreams by Tom Rosenthal. Coldplay's new album is pretty great too. 

Walking Shoes

CROP TOP: Brandy Melville // SKIRT: Goodwill // SNEAKERS: Topshop 

I always find maxi skirts a bit tricky to style, especially for my body type. With so much fabric it's easy for the outfit to just overwhelm your body and eat you up. For this simple look I paired the maxi with a crop top, which I think really helps balance all of that going on at the bottom. Living in Florence, I walk everywhere. It is so important for me to wear comfortable shoes and white sneakers are comfortable, yet very on trend at the moment. These sneakers are from Topshop and if you are going to be walking as much as I do everyday, I would suggest investing in a nicer quality pair of sneaks. These ones look great, but definitely hurt my feet after a couple of hours. Hope you enjoy this simple look!

xx Michelle 

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Twitter - @itsmemichelleg

Cool stuff: I can't live and travel Europe without the City Maps 2Go app. You pre-download the city map when you have wifi and then you can always access it through the app. The best part is it uses GPS and shows you where you are on the map without having to use data. 

A Weekend In Venezia, Italia

The life I live abroad is definitely a unique one. Class takes up my time at the beginning of the week but come Thursday and it's time to take off to a new location I’ve never visited before. I love studying in Italy because there are so many things to see just alone in the country I'm living in. As everything is just a short train ride away, my friend and I decided to spend a weekend in Venice. We spent two full days there which I think was the perfect amount of time. We had so much time to get lost in Venice and we were able to visit the neighboring islands of Burano and Murano. You truly get to know a city by getting lost in it and it is extremely easy to do so in Venice. The city is an organic one, meaning there are no main streets or direct roads to take somewhere. We ended up getting lost pretty frequently throughout the weekend, ending up at endless dead ends that hit a canal with no bridge to pass. Needless to say, Venice is a beautiful place and I had an amazing time wandering my way through it.

We started off the weekend checking into our hostel, Generator Venice. I couldn’t have been more pleased with our stay there. It is a lovely “boutique hostel” with trendy interior that is perfectly situated one bus stop from San Marco Square. The public transportation in Venice was fun to navigate because their system is entirely by water bus. Our first day was spent wandering through the touristy area around San Marco Square. The city is full of canals weaving through compact buildings that are all uniquely worn down in their own way. The city is definitely a quirky one, which is one of the reasons that makes it so great. We had our best meal of the trip our first night at La Zucca. The restaurant is a bit hard to find as it’s about a 20 minute walk into the island through alleys and over bridges. It’s a beautiful walk though and the restaurant is definitely worth it. La Zucca translates to “pumpkin” in Italian so most of the dishes had pumpkin incorporated into them. I would recommend the white lasagna with zucchini and pumpkin, the tagliatelle, and the panna cotta. They don’t offer an English menu but our waiter was very friendly and gladly helped us with the translations.

We ventured to Murano and Burano on our second day. Both are beautiful, but I highly recommend going the full way to Burano - it's a small island of colorful buildings along canals. It was one of my favorite parts of the weekend and well worth the long boat ride over there. Despite the high price, we did a gondola ride when we were back in Venice. The more people you have the less expensive it is, so that would be a tip on how to make that experience a little more budget-friendly. 

Venice has been one of my favorite places in Europe so far. Hope you like hearing about my abroad travels, I'll have a lot more to post throughout the rest of my time here. 

xx Michelle

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Favorites: Entouriste is one of my favorite sites right now. The photography is beautiful and I like to read their articles on different destinations. 

Travel Update No. 1

Photos taken in Paris, Strasbourg, Garmisch, Munich, Versaille, & Cinque Terre

I have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to spend a semester in Florence, Italy. Having been here for only a little over a month, I have seen and learned so much. Traveling around Europe is fairly easy to do and I have already been able to visit several different destinations. Just in the first ten days I was here, I attempted to speak three different languages. Emphasis on attempted! It’s important for me to realize what an opportunity it is for me to travel around Europe at my age, especially knowing that right now there are so many refugees being forced to come here out of need for survival. I’ve run into small challenges while being here but all of them have been learning experiences either big or small. Travel has always been something I value and prioritize and living abroad allows me to notice all the subtle cultural differences. For me, that’s walking by the café on my street and seeing the crowd of people around the bar sipping their espresso before they go to work. At home in the US, that experience would be me driving past a Starbucks and seeing everyone waiting to grab their venti latte to-go. (It is very rare to be able to get coffee to-go in Italy – I have only found one café that does it.) Even the sound of sirens here is different enough to remind me that I am not at home. I have cherished these differences and look forward to noticing more of these throughout my time here.

The above photos very briefly capture the places I have visited so far. I fell in love with Paris, drank beer with new friends at Oktoberfest, and ate fresh fish next to the sea in Cinque Terre. I will remember these moments forever and I look forward to making more of these memories. Talk to you soon.

Ciao!

xx Michelle

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instagram - lifeonlotus

twitter - @itsmemichelleg

Music I enjoy: Everything by Tame Impala.