going to the post

Its the subtle differences that I miss most about home. Case in point, my trip to the post office this morning:

After walking five or six blocks to the post office, or the "post" as its referred to here, I was pleased to not only have remembered where it was, but also with myself for remembering to bring the postcards that I wanted to mail. I walked back to the counter, and proudly told the man behind the counter that I would like to purchase five stamps to mail postcards to the US. After looking at me strangely, he told me I could only purchase stamps in sets of six. I replied that that was fine, and I was sure I could use up the last stamp at some point. He picked out six Frankenstien stamps (whether or not he was insinuating anything I chose to ignore) and told me they would be three pounds sixty nine. Having only large bills in my wallet, I attempted to pay with change. Let me say that there is a significantly larger repertoire of change in all European countries, but in the UK especially. There is a half-pence, a one pence, a two pence, a five pence, a ten pence, a twenty pence, a fifty pence, a one pound, and a two pound. In my opinion all very unnecessary, and judging by the weight of my wallet I was sure that I had at least 3.69 in coins. My friend the cashier didn't find any patience in waiting for me to fish out the correct coins to pay with and began to clear his throat and tap his fingers. I resigned just to pay with a 20 pound note and add even more weight to my wallet with the large amount of change I was sure to receive. Instead of handing him just one note, I handed him 3 on accident, and he proceeded to make a huge fuss, jokingly, about how I was trying to pay him off and what in the world could I want him to do for sixty pounds and didn't his buddy think it funny that he was receiving so much for the post on five post cards. Embarrassed, I laughed and said "its just been one of those mornings." He promptly replied that clearly it had been "one of those nights" and I assured him that was not the case. He laughed and said he believed me, it was clear that blondes were already at a disadvantage for accomplishing tasks such as these.

After getting the correct change, and my two bills back, I decided to leave and drop my postcards in a mailbox somewhere along the way. I started walking down the sidewalk and placing stamps on the postcards at the same time. I kept almost running into people, and I couldn't figure out why people kept walking right in front of me. Until I realized that I had been walking on the right side of the sidewalk, conveniently the "wrong" side in England.

Who knew mailing postcards required so much cultural awareness?

Cheerio!

July 24-29: Oxford Week 1

Sorry for the lack of posting, adjusting to a routine everyday has been quite the change! This week has been incredible, to say the least. I’ve settled into my own routine, which consists of class, reading, meals, and more reading. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time, and I am enjoying every second!

A typical day for me, at least for this past week, involved me waking up around 6:30 or so to read before breakfast. Our Jane Austen class has us reading a book a week, so I usually have 2-3 hours of reading a day to complete. I’m definitely not complaining though; I had every intention of reading all the time here so this just guarantees that I will. I go to breakfast around 8:30 with Lauren (my neighbor) and eat a huge breakfast of hash browns, eggs, sautéed mushrooms, baked beans (weird.), sausage. I have found that I eat a big enough breakfast I can eat a really small lunch, which saves me a lot of money. After breakfast its back up to my room to shower and get ready for the day. Then more reading and I’m off to my ethics class at 11:30. I am absolutely loving this class, it’s a structured debate class on all sorts of biomedical issues, and for the past week we’ve been talking about procreative rights and genetic engineering, hot topics for sure.

I have a two hour break between ethics and Jane Austen, which is usually filled with more reading. On the days when I’m able to finish my reading beforehand Gwen I and go out into the town to explore or buy groceries or window shop. Its really neat to have such cool places so close to campus; it’s a great way to spend an extra hour or so.

Jane Austen is a lot of reading, but once we get to class it’s a roundtable discussion on the book, lead by our incredible professor. We are comparing different movie adaptations of the book in movie form, and eventually we will recreate our own movie scene. Our professor, who we call Karen because she is Quaker and doesn’t like having any sort of title to her name, is a very loud, outspoken person who always has something interesting, and sometimes shocking, to say. Our 90 minute class always flies by.

After class we have an hour or so to ourselves before dinner, which I usually spend skyping or reading or doing work. I really enjoy having a room so central to everything on campus; its become a staging ground for everyone to leave stuff during the day, so I always have visitors! I’m so glad that I will have my own room in the fall, it would definitely be difficult to go back to having a roommate to live with. I have adjusted very easily to being able to wake up on my own schedule and play music whenever I want!

Dinner is always phenomenal, we have a three course meal every single night. Its always served family-style, so it really feels like home. After dinner there is always something going on. One night we visited “The Eagle and Child,” the pub that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien use to hang out at, which was so cool. I tried to touch everything that I could so that I might get a little CS Lewis dust on me! We also went running in the town one night, and got out of the tourist district into more of the residential scene. It was like we were running straight through the set of Love Actually! There is also a pub on campus, so all week people have been watching EuroCup games there. None of us have TVs in our rooms, so anything we want to watch we have watch in either the pub or the computer room…a community builder for sure!

This weekend we visited the town of Bath, recommended to us by our Jane Austen professor. We took 2 hour bus ride there, and saw the sights and had tea. There were lots of shops to visit as well. It was definitely a stereotypical English town, all the buildings looked very “proper” and well kept.

Today we went to church, which was such a refreshing experience. It had been almost 6 weeks since I’d been to any church service, and I was so hungry for worship! As we walked towards the church, we ran into a man who lead us in the right direction and was incredibly welcoming. He introduced us the student minister, who thought our American accents were so cool! The service itself was way different than what I was expecting, it was very contemporary and a lot like Midtown is (my home church). It was such a cool experience to see that people across the globe worship the same way I do. One of my favorite parts of the service was when the international minister got up and prayed for Afghanistan. It was so interesting to see a different country’s perspective on the war on terrorism. They didn’t say anything about America or their opinion of the war, they focused completely on praying for the Afghan people and the Taliban. I just can’t get over how powerful it was to see people in a totally different continent praying for the same things that we do in America. It was also neat to be in such an old cathedral, but one that was still alive and full of the Spirit. So many of the churches that I have visited on this trip seem like museums…no one seems to be reverent in them and it feels like their original purpose has been forgotten. In this church, you could see the same old architectural elements, but there were also modern additions: speakers and seating and television equipment. It was neat to think that this church has been in existence for hundreds of years, constantly changing to meet the needs of its people. It was such a living, loving, welcoming body of believers.

After lunch we headed out to lunch, and then did a little shopping. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading out on the lawn in the sunshine in the company of some ducks from the lake. It was almost too perfect to be real.

Sweet Jesus...I just want to sit down!

June 18, 2008

Today was everything Berlin. We started the morning off with a bus tour led by none other than Freddie himself. He drove us through a lot of East Berlin (the Communist side) and we got to see the Berlin wall, which was absolutely fascinating. It’s neat to think that a lot of the changes that have happened in the country have been in my lifetime. We also drove out Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only gateway between East and West when the city was divided. We drove out to the Olympic Stadium, a palace in the city, and the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag building. Our tour ended at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, which is a very modern art gallery. We saw lots of really “out there” pieces, including a large gallery room full of nothing but huge chunks of tallow and a felt suit hanging on the well. It was amusing to watch everyone’s reaction. Combine our feelings for the art with Medina’s appreciation for it and we had some interesting discussions in that museum for sure. I can’t say it was my favorite, but it is definitely one that I will remember for a long time!

After the museum some of us headed to the Reichstag building to climb the dome. (Its what we do when we get somewhere; we have to climb something!). The Reichstag building was fascinating to me because of how recent a large portion of its history is. The dome, completed in 1990 after major damage throughout the course of WWII, is made completely of glass and sits directly over the meeting place of the German parliament. It is suppose to symbolize the fact that the German people will always be “above” their government. To get up we didn’t actually have to climb anything, which was nice. Just a quick elevator ride up and then you had an incredibly view of the city.

We took the train home, and grabbed some dinner at the train station on our way back. We had about an hour to get ready for our final concert of the summer, which no one was very excited about. There is a pretty nasty flu virus going around, and about half of us feel nauseous and feverish. So far I haven’t been to sick, but I think its probably just a matter of time….

The concert ended up being pretty good. A little on the longer side, but it was still neat. The concert venue was some sort of very old city hall building, and the actual room it was in gave it a very “chamber orchestra” feeling. Afterwards, pretty much everyone went back to the hotel to pack and sleep. We are all pretty tired now and a good night’s sleep seems very appealing!

June 19, 2008

Another glorious driving day! When we started this trip it was almost impossible for me to fall asleep on the bus unless I was curled up in a strange position that left me sore with various limbs completely asleep. Now, however, I am fully capable of getting a nice nap in a completely upright position, regardless of the quality of the road or what is going on around me. This makes bus day a great day just to nap and do school work, with today being no exception. The fight for seats has gotten even more ferocious…but Molly and I managed to get a decent seats.

We only made one long stop during the trip, which was to visit the rocks of Extenstein. One of the kids in our group had seen something written about them a few years back, and decided that if he was ever in Germany that he would want to stop and see them. They are kind of a Stonehenge type attraction: large stones with stairs carved into the sides for people to climb up. The rocks just happened to be between Berlin and Beilfield, so we stopped. It was great to be outdoors for a few hours, and it just so happens that there is always a big festival at the rocks for the summer solstice, which is just two days from now. There were already lots of crazies camped out, beating drums, and playing fifes. It was quite a strange environment, but a lot of fun all the same.

We got to our hotel in Beilfield and all got together for Bible study. We have about 13 people coming now! Afterwards we went in search of food, which was much more difficult than we expected. We wanted to go to the grocery store, and we could see one about a block away from our hotel. As we approached we realized that the whole shopping center was fenced in, so we had to walk an addition 2-3 blocks just to get to the store. On the way out we walked a different direction towards McDonalds (the only restaurant anywhere close) and ended up an Audi dealership, trapped once again by the fence. At the point to walk to the gate would have been 3-4 blocks, and we were really hungry, so we decided to jump the fence. I’m sure we looked like stupid Americas, but at this point it was raining and we didn’t really care what anybody thought.

At McDonalds we found almost everyone in our group, and once again had hamburgers and salads for dinner. I’ve eaten more McDonalds in Europe than I have in the past five years in the US. Its good, its cheap, its reliable…what can I say?

After dinner we borrowed Mary’s laptop and watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy….SO GOOD. It was like spending the evening was good friends. Most of the guys watched the soccer game, and we knew exactly when the game was over because the whole world went crazy. Not only did we hear yelling in the hotel, cars outside honked for hours after the game ended. It was neat to be in a country when their soccer team won; I wish the US had that kind of spirit about a particular sport. That was about the extent of our excitement of the evening, for the rest of the night we hung out with our usual crowd.

June 20, 2008

Day two of driving to Brussels. The seating situation on the bus has gotten pretty out of control…yesterday they told us that bus doors wouldn’t open until 8am, and if we wanted good seats we had to be lined up outside the bus when they opened. The four of up hoped that people would try to be rational and not show up super early to the bus. We were wrong. When we walked out to the bus at 7:50 (ten minutes before we could get on) we were the last people in line. Apparently the line had started to form around 7, and people had developed a complicated set of rules about who was able to save seats for who and how many seats could be saved. Leave it to Tech students to make everything way more complicated than necessary. An IE behind me kept complaining the whole time about how inefficient the system was. I ended up getting a seat in the very back corner, but it wasn’t all that bad. This drive was the shortest so far anyways.

We didn’t have any big stops along the way, which was good. We got to Brussels very early, so they decided to take us directly to a music museum instead of checking into the hotel. Of course everyone was upset about it…at this point museums are equitable to legalized torture. It was a music museum, different than so many of the art museums we’ve been to, and I thought it was pretty interesting. We all wore huge headsets that activated when you got close to a particular instrument display, which was cool unless to got too close to a group of displays, because then you’d hear several music pieces at once…it was a little overwhelming! We were all suppose to meet at the top floor of the museum to hear some jazz students from the local university play their final exams. Dr. Haydn really talked up the performance, so were expecting some pretty talented musicians. He was way off…the students, particularly the marimba player, were not very good but thought they were awesome…a dangerous combination. After two pieces, Dr. Haydn signaled us and we all got up and left. A little rude maybe, but I don’t think I could have kept a straight face through the whole thing…

Our hotel here is awesome, probably my favorite so far. The rooms are very nice and some of the larger rooms that we’ve stayed in, which is good since we have a lot of studying to do for finals. We are right in the middle of the city, which is also a good thing. We had time before our welcome dinner to go use the gym, take a shower, and even do a little laundry. We also wrote our last music paper, which felt really good to finish up!

The dinner was way too sophisticated for a simple girl like me. I’m sure a classier person would have enjoyed it, but salmon pate just isn’t my thing. We ate on the 9^th floor of the hotel, which gave us a great view of the city. After dinner we went out exploring the area a little, but everything closes early here, so we weren’t able to find much. We are in the shopping district of Brussels, so there are stores and malls everywhere! We are also just south of a long line of strip clubs….I guess we wont be going much north of the hotel. We did find a good place for internet, so tomorrow we will be able to check email!

June 21, 2008

Today we went to class and studied. The End.

Just kidding! We did have both classes, which was a lot of review for finals tomorrow. Afterward we headed to the Victor Horta museum, which was really cool! It was actually his home, which he built in the Art Nuveou style. It was a nice change from the normal art gallery type of museum, and a good museum to end on. We rode the metro there and back, which was a strange hybrid of subway and tram. There were some strange people on the tram, that’s for sure…

When we got back to the hotel we picked up our computers and went to use free internet a restaurant close to the hotel. Our intention was to study, but internet is such a luxury that I ended up sending emails the whole time. We had to go back to the hotel and do some intense studying, and then for dinner we took a study break and went to a place called Cheese Cake Café. It was probably the most American restaurant we’ve been to so far; there was lots of food and it came pretty quickly.

After dinner it was more studying. We had about 10 people in our room and we were blasting the classical music. I tried to call and get a different pillow from the reception (a special service that the hotel offers) but due to a slight miscommunication, they brought us a large stack of towels. Three separate times. The fourth try was the charm, I finally got an awesome “firm” pillow. We decided to go to bed and wake up early in the morning to finish studying.

June 22, 2008

Finals day! Molly and I got up at 5:30 to finish up studying, and then we opened up breakfast at the hotel at 6:30. Have a mentioned how awesome breakfast has been so far? Belgian waffles and everything! We studied with other people at breakfast, and then headed to class. The final ended up being alright…it wasn’t too easy but we all think we did pretty well. We had a little time to kill between art and music, so I went back to the hotel and ate more breakfast…don’t judge! The music final went well too. It feels so good to be done with class for a while!

We all came back to the hotel and got ready to explore Brussels. Hank and I asked the reception if there were any protestant churches around; since it was Sunday we thought it would be cool to go to a service. They responded by handing a list of every catholic mass in the city…oh well! We found that most of the city is closed on Sunday, especially in the shopping district, but we still saw some of the most popular tourist spots, including the main square and the statue of the boy peeing. Everyone had talked about how famous the statue was, and when we finally found it I was so disappointed with it. Its just a little brass fountain about a foot and a half tall, peeing into a little basin. At least I can say that I’ve seen it…

We ate Belgian waffles from a small stand…twice. Once again, don’t judge me! We also hiked to a park on the edge of the city. It was a strange place, there was a lot of garbage everywhere and not a lot of green space. Walking to the park was a lot of fun though, we came across a market selling a lot of jewelry that was fun to look at. We came back to the hotel and chilled for a little while, and then Freddy took us to his favorite place in Brussels…called Brue Park. It was a strange combination of a water park, themed restaurants, and a gigantic molecule structure from the World’s Fair in the 1950’s. It wasn’t what any of us were expecting, but Freddy loved it so we had fun as well. The bus ride back into town was the best of the trip…we all sang Cher and Freddie blinked the isle lights the whole way. There was also some dancing in the isles…what can I say, we know how to party!

Everyone in our group is getting very concerned with the idea of adding 100 more people to our social circle. We’ve decided that Group 2 is clearly the best and we really don’t need anyone else. It really has been a blast getting to know everyone. There are certainly a lot of people that I would never have met in Atlanta that I am so close with now. We all decided to go out together for our last night traveling, and we ended up leaving just as the Spain/Italy soccer game. Spain won, and it was crazy throughout the city. People were cheering and waving flags and running around and honking…pure insanity. We cheered with the best of them, though, despite the fact that none of us really had any loyalty to Spain. It was a cool environment to experience. We all went to a pub and enjoyed each other’s company for one more night. We left really late, and people were still out cheering and celebrating the game as we walked home. It was a perfect end to an amazing European trip.

We had an exciting scene waiting for us at the hotel when we returned. We saw lots of police in the lobby, and one of our professors. We couldn’t really figure out what was going on until Molly saw two kids from our group in handcuffs. You can imagine the rumors that started flying! We came up with some pretty crazy stories, but we couldn’t get any firm answers on what was going on. News travels fast, and by the time we were walking into our room we could hear lots of people speculating about what had actually happened.

June 23, 2008

Our very last bus day! Despite all the drama of the last couple of rides, everyone got decent seats for the last leg of the trip. There wasn’t even a long line thirty minutes before the doors opened! It was good to pack everything up and know that we wouldn’t have to do it again for six weeks. We were pressured to leave right at 8:00am in order to make our Chunnel appointment, and we left pretty close to it, which is saying a lot for our group. The two kids we had seen in handcuffs the night before were on the bus, which we took to be a good sign. It didn’t help our curiosity, though. Someone talked to a bellhop who said that they had thrown a glass bottle out of their window and hit someone on the sidewalk…but no one knows for sure.

Everyone was anxious on the bus and it was much more difficult to sleep than usual. We made it to the chunnel with plenty of time to spare, and when we loaded our train car we ended up being on the same car as both other Tech groups headed to Oxford, so we got to say hi to people we hadn’t seen in weeks and compare stories. Our story about getting arrested definitely trumped any other groups, even the group who had someone projectile vomit in the middle of class. We are awesome.

We had another couple hours to drive after we arrived in England, so all the Tech kids got back on their groups’ busses. Everyone’s thoughts about group two being better than the others were confirmed, and we decided we really didn’t need to go to Oxford with them after all. Its going to be difficult adjusting to having so many more people to talk to every day!

Arriving at Oxford was such a unique, special experience. We pulled in front of the college and a security guard with a beautiful English accent got on the bus to give us instructions about checking in. It was so exciting! We all got our rooms, and then proceeded to run around the campus and look at everone’s. There are quite a few different types of rooms in the college. I am in a dorm that is probably older than the United States, and it is the coolest place I’ve ever been in. There is a small parlor room when you first walk in, and then a tiny bedroom/sink in an adjoining room. I am on the top floor of “staircase 11,” which means I have to walk up three levels of winding staircase to get to my room. I absolutely adore it!

Most of our group is across campus (only a 5 minute walk) in much newer dorms with their own bathrooms. Everyone is really excited about where they are, and we are all wondering why Georgia Tech housing can’t be like this. Hmmmm….

Dinner was perfect. They served us family style, and it was so refreshing not to have chosen from a menu what we wanted to eat. The food was delicious, we ate butternut squash soup, and salmon, roasted potatoes, broccoli, and an excellent cake/berry dessert Molly described as “communion food.” Afterwards we went to a short orientation about the campus, and they told us what grass we couldn’t walk on and a lot of other rules we have to follow.

We explored the campus a little afterwards. It’s difficult to describe how beautiful it is here…it doesn’t even seem real. We also went into the town, which is just as charming and picturesque as you could ever imagine. Now I am sitting at my desk, looking out my window, talking to my mom, and having some alone time for the first time in four weeks. It doesn’t get much more peaceful than this.

Hairy Mustachio!

June 14, 2008

Prague is an absolutely gorgeous city. We woke up early this morning, at ate a very intereting breakfast, complete with baked beans and hot dogs and pasta salad. Weird. After class we all took the metro into the heart of the city and explored a little before our walking tour with Dr. Medina. We bought huge hunks of sausage for lunch, and then went to a little coffee shop for dessert.

During our walking tour Dr. Medina pointed out all the different types of architecture in the city, and we watched the turn of the hour on the astronomical clock in the town square. Everyone crowded around to see it, so we expected that something really cool would happen. At the turn of the hour, the bell started to ring and a small skeleton guy danced around mechanically. We were all slightly disappointed with the whole thing. Apparently the clock was a major feat back in the day, and the king was so proud of it that he had the clockmaker blinded so that he couldn’t make one for any other city. Poor guy!

We walked over the main bridge of the city and got a great view of the river and the city. From there we took the trolly to the Mozart museum, which was actually his summer home. It was neat for a little while, but at this point we are all pretty disillusioned with museums, and we were ready to head back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel with just enough time to grab some pizza from our new favorite pizza place and get all dressed up for the Opera. Everyone pulled out the same dresses that we wore in Rome, and rode the Metro to the opera house. Apparently large groups of nicely dressed people don’t frequent the metro, because we got lots of strange stares from locals. The opera was quite an experience. The opera house was similar to other ones that we’ve toured. We sat in the very top section, which was great because we had a good view of the pit and the stage. There were ornate carvings everywhere, and a huge chandlier in the middle just the Paris Opera House. The actual opera wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen, but that might have something to do with the fact that they were singing in German and there were Czech subtitles, which made it slightly difficult to understand. Definitely a neat experience though. Everyone should go to at least one opera in their life!

We got back around 10:30 and some people went to a five-story disco tech that’s really popular in Prague. Liz and I weren’t feeling all that great, so we just stayed in for the night. It was great to just chill out for a while.

June 15, 2008

No two days have been remotely similar on our trip, but for some reason I seem to be falling into a routine when it comes to journaling about them. I always start off with “today was [insert fun-sounding adjective]” and then proceed to recount the day’s events in chronological order. That must be really boring to read about. Unfortunately, I am not a good writer and an extreme creature of habit, so you will just have to bear with me. I apologize J

Today was awesome! (How’s that for a lame fun-sounding adjective?) Class in the morning and then over to Prague castle for a walking tour of the area. The weather here is crazy, one second it will be warm and sunny, and the next minute it will cloudy with a breeze that makes you cold in no time. Our hike up to the castle was a good example of that. I got really hot climbing up, but as soon as we got to the top the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in and I was freezing. Its difficult to adjust to, that’s for sure.

We got to the castle just in time to see the changing of the guards. We all took pictures next to them, with their interesting uniforms and straight-faced dispositions. Dr. Medina lead as around the castle, the cathedral, and the surrounding courtyards. Being on the hill provided an excellent view of the city. It was neat to see the centuries-old architecture spread throughout the hills.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you are and how much you like museums…) the Dvorak Museum was closed for the day, so we had the rest of the day free. We went back into the center of town, and ate a café close to the metro.** From there we tried asking people where H&M was, and each time someone gave us different directions. We did stumble across a neat open-air market in the process, with lots of food, jewelry, and marionette dolls. After exploring the market for a while we took the metro back to the hotel and chilled at the pizzeria with internet for a while. Since it was Father’s Day we all tried to call our parents, but to no avail because, once again, it was Sunday and everyone was at church. The time change is a difficult thing to work with sometimes!

We headed back into town after resting for a little bit, and finally found H&M and another store that’s popular in Europe, C&A. We weren’t too impressed with either, but being next to the mall gave us a good choice of places to eat dinner, and we ended up eating at an expensive place that served lots of traditional Czech food. I had something with lots of dumplings, steamed red cabbage, and meat. I don’t remember at all what it was called, but I really enjoyed it!

After dinner we headed back into the square once again to watch the Czech/Turkey soccer game. We ran into some people from our group completely by chance, and they lead us to the rest of the group. We had to snake through a very packed crowd to get to everyone, and there were a couple uncomfortable confrontations. Our group was located right next to a crazy Czech man, probably homeless, who had about four teeth and was more into a soccer game than I’ve ever seen in my life. The guys we were with were awesome about separating all the girls from him and all the other crazy people around…it was definitely an experience, probably one of the coolest experiences I have had so far. Everyone was INCREDIBLY spirited, screaming “Czech-ee” all the time. (I’m sure that’s not how you spell it, but that’s the phonetic gist of the word…) When Czech scored the crowed went wild, there was a lot of jumping up and down and cheering and hugging and high-fiving. They were ahead 2-0 until about the last fifteen minutes of the game, when Turkey scored three goals. Everyone was devastated. Our homeless Czech friend got punched in the face for some reason (we aren’t sure if he instigated it or not…I wouldn’t be too surprised if that was the case) and within seconds the crowd separated and there were several huge bouncer-type guys separating them. After the game ended, everyone quietly walked out of the square. We were all so disappointed. Our little homeless man cried; he had a very rough night.

We headed back to the hotel to pack after the game. We definitely weren’t in Prague for long enough!

**Let me take a second to say how awesome the metro system is in Prague. Not only is it clean and safe, its very quick, efficient, and gets you wherever you want to go. It’s really easy to figure out and enjoyable to use. Definitely my favorite so far.

June 16, 2008

Yet another day of travel. We were suppose to load the bus at 7:45am, and by 6:45 am there were people waiting outside the bus to make sure that they got the seats they wanted. I’m glad we only have a few days left…its getting pretty fierce on the bus early in the morning! There are rumors that Freddie can be persuaded to let people onto the bus the night before we leave to let people reserve the prime seats….the system has been corrupted! Since the seats we sit in are not considered prime real estate, we generally don’t have much of a problem getting seats together. We pulled out a few minutes early (no drunk people this time!) and I was asleep about two minutes into the trip.

We stopped at a concentration camp on the way to Berlin in Terezin. This camp was the one that Nazi leaders used for propaganda to tell the world that the Jews were being treated well…they prepared well-equipped rooms for red cross inspections and videos that were circulated around the world. Initially I was a little upset that we wouldn’t be seeing a more “realistic” camp, but I had no idea how powerful visiting this camp would actually be.

There was a steady, cold rain the entire time we were in the camp; it was very somber and fitting. We were lead through the camp by a little lady with a very thick accent who was incredibly difficult to understand. The first place that she took us was the entrance offices and original barracks. At the beginning of the war the camp started out being a place where prisoners were held, and then eventually became a location where many Jews were brought. The first barracks that we went into consisted of three levels of bunk beds that were fastened to the wall. People were meant to lay perpendicular to the wall, which allowed officials to place many more people in them than if they had regular bunks. The room that we were in was probably about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide and was meant to hold 100 people. Even the 50 of us that were on the tour had a difficult time fitting in, and it was incredible to think that twice that many people lived there for months on end.

We walked through more barracks and isolation chambers and saw were Arch Duke Ferdinand’s assassin was kept. The cells were originally intended to hold one person, but as over-crowding became an issue as many as 15-20 people were forced into a single cell with no light and very little ventilation. Prisoners in the camp were allowed to shower once a week and the shower facilities were unbelievable. There were several heads coming directly from the ceiling that five or six people were meant to share, with an incredibly limited supply of hot water, no matter the outside weather conditions. We saw a room full of comparatively nice sinks and mirrors, which our guide said was a room built solely in case of a Red Cross inspection and was actually never used by prisoners.

We went through a 500 meter stretch of tunnel through the perimeter of the prison that led to the execution area. It was a horrific place to stand, but what was even more terrible was the fact that directly on the other side of the wall was the home of the commander and other military officials, where families with children lived through the duration of the war. We saw larger barracks built by prisoners during the war next. These barracks were built to maximize efficiency and minimize cost, so they installed skylights in the roofs to save electricity. Aside from being horrible insulators, they produced a greenhouse effect in the room, and it would actually rain on prisoners in the night as the steam that collected in the room during the day condensed with the colder night temperatures. These rooms were relatively large, and held as many as 600 people at any given time. Clearly disease was rampant throughout the camp.

On our way out of the camp we walked through a memorial to the people that died in Terezin, approximately 80,000. There was a large Star of David and a cross overshadowing grave markers and a field of red roses. It was a breathtaking sight, and a very respectful memorial for those that suffered there. I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to visit the camp. It was an incredibly difficult thing to see, but something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

The rest of the bus ride was a combination of sleeping and studying and preparing for the music test that we have tomorrow. We pulled into Berlin around 4, which gave us a couple hours to chill before the welcome dinner. Any chill time is very welcome and so enjoyable to have!

The welcome dinner was the best yet. We ate at a restaurant off the river, and it was just really good, familiar food. The chocolate mousse we had for dessert was probably one of the best things I’ve ever put into my mouth. We spent the rest of the evening studying for our music listening tests, which involved making a play list of about 18 classical pieces and putting the player on repeat, then identifying each piece as it came on. We were studying with our door open, and before long there were about 10 people in our room studying together, all listening to classical music. I’m sure the hotel personnel thought we were incredibly strange Americans. We had the window open the entire time, and you could hear crowds across the city cheering every time Germany scored a goal in the soccer game. It was neat to hear, even if we couldn’t be a part of it. Another chill night, but it was still a lot of fun to hang out with everyone, even if we were just studying.

June 17, 2008

Our first full day in Berlin was absolutely beautiful. Berlin is very different than any other city we’ve visited…its buildings are much more practical in their design and a lot less ornamental, especially in the East portion of the city, which was controlled by Communist for about forty years. We had out music class at a hotel pretty far away from where we are staying, but it gave us a great opportunity to see some of the city and get our bearings. Our test ended up not being difficult at all; all our studying paid off!

After class we went back to the hotel to regroup and get ready for the day. We took the train to the first museum we were visiting, with was the Old National Gallery. There are two kinds of train in Berlin, the S and the U. The S is the above ground track, which is a lot more enjoyable to ride on than anything underground because you get to see so much of the city. There is a wide variety of architecture visible; there are old, ornate, domes and modern, sleek buildings painted with bright primary colors…its quite a contrast! The museum itself was built in a very interesting style, portions were very ornate and beautiful while other portions were pretty bare. There were quite a few interesting pieces of artwork to look at.

We had about an hour break before we had to be at the second museum, which gave us just enough time to get some ice cream and enjoy it next to the river. The weather in Berlin is very strange. When the sun is outside its pretty warm, the kind of weather that shorts and a t-shirt are good for. But if a cloud or a breeze comes around, the temperature drops significantly. Its difficult to plan for!

Our second museum of the day was the Pergamon Museum, which houses lots of Ancient Greek works, including the original face to the Pergamon Chapel. During the 19th century the Germans went crazy and tried to collect as much art as possible from all over, including Greece. They brought a lot of amazing works back to the city and rebuilt portions of huge buildings indoors. They are fascinating to look at! The museum was located behind the Berlin Wall, and Dr. Medina said that it was incredibly exciting for the art world when the wall fell because it meant that they could once again go and see so much fascinating artwork!

After the museum a lot of people decided to head back to the hotel, but a couple of us decide to walk around Berlin for a little longer. It was just too pretty a day to head back to our rooms. We walked down one of the main roads of the city, window shopping and admiring all the buildings and scenery. We saw many important buildings, but the most memorable thing was the memorial to the 6 million Jews that were murdered during WWII. The memorial wasn’t built until after the fall of the Wall, and it is a very simple, bold statement. They made over 2700 rectangular cubes and placed them in a grid pattern along two city blocks. It’s a very ominous, bare reminder of what happened.

We came back to the hotel after our Berlin exploring, and decided to go get some dinner at the train station. I wanted some traditional German fast food, so I went to the Weiner Worst stand, of course. I was looking over the menu trying to figure out what to get, when a really cute guy with a little bit of a Swiss accent came up next to me and asked if I needed any help ordering anything. I was very happy to get any recommendation, and he described something that sounded good, so I was in. He asked me if I would like him to order for me, which I gladly took him up on. The meal, which ended up being a Reisencurreyworst combo I believe, was great. It was a whitish sausage looking thing cut up and covered in spiced ketchup and paprika. He also ordered me fries with mayo and ketchup…a surprisingly good combination. I love meeting locals! After dinner we came back to the hotel, wrote our music papers, and watched the soccer game for a little bit. A good European evening for sure!

June 18, 2008

Today was everything Berlin. We started the morning off with a bus tour led by none other than Freddie himself. He drove us through a lot of East Berlin (the Communist side) and we got to see the Berlin wall, which was absolutely fascinating. It’s neat to think that a lot of the changes that have happened in the country have been in my lifetime. We also drove out Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only gateway between East and West when the city was divided. We drove out to the Olympic Stadium, a palace in the city, and the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag building. Our tour ended at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, which is a very modern art gallery. We saw lots of really “out there” pieces, including a large gallery room full of nothing but huge chunks of tallow and a felt suit hanging on the well. It was amusing to watch everyone’s reaction. Combine our feelings for the art with Medina’s appreciation for it and we had some interesting discussions in that museum for sure. I can’t say it was my favorite, but it is definitely one that I will remember for a long time!

After the museum some of us headed to the Reichstag building to climb the dome. (Its what we do when we get somewhere; we have to climb something!). The Reichstag building was fascinating to me because of how recent a large portion of its history is. The dome, completed in 1990 after major damage throughout the course of WWII, is made completely of glass and sits directly over the meeting place of the German parliament. It is suppose to symbolize the fact that the German people will always be “above” their government. To get up we didn’t actually have to climb anything, which was nice. Just a quick elevator ride up and then you had an incredibly view of the city.

We took the train home, and grabbed some dinner at the train station on our way back. We had about an hour to get ready for our final concert of the summer, which no one was very excited about. There is a pretty nasty flu virus going around, and about half of us feel nauseous and feverish. So far I haven’t been to sick, but I think its probably just a matter of time….

The concert ended up being pretty good. A little on the longer side, but it was still neat. The concert venue was some sort of very old city hall building, and the actual room it was in gave it a very “chamber orchestra” feeling. Afterwards, pretty much everyone went back to the hotel to pack and sleep. We are all pretty tired now and a good night’s sleep seems very appealing!

Honeycake for free Wireless

June 13, 2008

Today was yet another bus day. We’ve all gotten pretty good at packing and loading the bus in a short amount of time, with the motivation that the earlier you get to the bus the better seat you will have. Today was no exception, other than the fact that Freddie wasn’t able to get the bus anywhere close to the hotel. Dan told us to meet in the lobby with our suitcases at 7:45 am, and by 7:40 everyone was ready to go. When he told us where the bus was, it was a mad dash three blocks down to where the bus was parked. The whole thing reminded me a lot of the day after Thanksgiving shopping spree, people lined up at the doors and then falling on top of each other as soon as they open. Molly, Gwen, Liz and I planned ahead and left early from our rooms so that we were closest to the doors. We walked as fast as possible down the sidewalk with our bags flopping and our heavy suitcases rumbling from behind. Some guys had the energy to run, but even that was short-lived. We were one of the first to make it to the bus, and we got decent seats. We ended up waiting for about 40 minutes for one kid to get on the bus. Needless to say, Dan and all the leaders were really upset with him. We left Budapest around 8:40 and I was asleep about a minute later.

We stopped for lunch and Vienna, Austria. It was good to be back in the Euro for a little while. Dr. Medina walked us toward the center of town to see a big cathedral…and I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it. The inside had a lot of modern decorations in it…which Dr. Medina thought might have been because of the EuroCup. It was really neat to see the combination of old and new in the church. After seeing the cathedral we walked to find some lunch, and ended up eating large, un-ladylike bratwurst in French bread. The weather was way cooler than anyone planned on, and we ended up huddling in the window of Starbucks to get out of the wind. We eventually decided to go inside, by something to drink, and warm up for a little while. We headed back to the bus and on the way stopped into McDonald’s for a hot apple pie. Absolutely delicious!

A lot of kids went over towards the soccer stadium and bought all sorts of jerseys, scarves, and hats. We were showing lots of spirit for a wide variety of countries as we pulled out of the city.

From Vienna we drove through Slovakia, which was an absolutely beautiful country. There were a lot of vineyards and rolling hills, and all of the countryside was very green and luscious. We had to stop because of bus regulations at a stop in the country, and we ended up sitting huddled together outside in the wind just waiting to be able to get back on the bus. Forty-five minutes was plenty of time in that country!

As we drove into the Czech Republic, the sun started to come out and light up the countryside. The countryside was very similar to Slovakia, lots of rolling hills and greenery everywhere. As we got closer to Prague you could see lots of colorful houses and towns from the highway. It was different from anything we’ve seen so far and a lot of fun to look at!

We pulled into the hotel just in time to go to our welcome dinner, which was, once again, meat and potatoes. It wasn’t bad, and free dinner is always a nice change. After dinner all of us crashed the pizzeria across the street with free wifi. We all ordered honey cake, an awesome Czech dessert, and tried to get in touch with people. Unfortunately, with so many of us on the internet at once, no one was able to do much. We were all pretty tired from the drive, and everybody went to bed at a halfway decent hour.

I can't think of a creative title right now

June 12, 2008

After checking the weather yesterday, we were disappointed but not surprised to see that it was suppose to pour all day. We put on all our rain gear and went met at the Museum of Fine Arts in Hero’s Square ready to start our day. As Murphy’s law would have it, the sun was shining brightly by the time we got across town to the museum. I don’t know what it is about our group and weather…

The museum was actually very cool. We spent most of our time in the photography exhibit, which was different from anything we’ve seen thus far on the trip. Most pictures dealt with social justice issues, and it really made me realize just how “out of the loop” I’ve been these past three weeks with any type of current event. I am definitely living in a fifty person bubble right now!

After the museum we went in search of a Hungarian lunch, which you would think should be pretty easy to find. We asked several different people, but we must not have been clear with what we were asking because no one ever gave us a clear answer. We ended up getting gyros and eating at Subway. From there we walked back to the hotel and regrouped before heading out for the afternoon.

Near our hotel there was a momument erected at the end of WWII to commemorate the liberation of the Nazis. It was on top of a hill that had a great overlook of the city, so we decided to hike up. The mountain was on the other side of the river in Buda, so we got to cross one of the many bridges in the city, which was a fun experience in and of itself.

The climb up the mountain wasn’t as difficult as we had anticipated, and we got to the top in less than thirty minutes. Along the way we passed a memorial to the guy that brought Christianity to Budapest. According the tourist literature, witches use to gather on the mountain together, and when this guy came to the city they put him in a barrel and threw him into the river. The statue that was made for his was pretty strange, but it was still cool to see.

The top of the mountain was an incredible view of the city. We got there around 6pm, so the sun was just starting to set. On the way back down, we found a playground that was carved right into the side of the mountain, complete with several long slides that were incredibly fun to slide down. I’m sure we looked silly being so excited about finding the playground, but it was a lot of fun! There were some really cute kids there as well, in particular a little girl with curl blonde hair that followed us wherever we went. She didn’t understand anything we said to her, including hello, but she grinned and chased behind us and tried to come back with us even. It was good to be around young kids for a change!

Once we got back to the hotel, we went out to dinner. We never found a truly authentic Hungarian place to eat, but I did order goulash, which I figured was Hungarian enough. We ate outside and had fun people watching all throughout dinner. We saw almost everyone from our group walk by, so I’m sure we were very obnoxious to everyone else that was eating there. After dinner we went out to a dance club in Buda with almost everyone. We saw some crazy European outfits and even crazier dance moves…but it made all of us feel way normal and like halfway decent dancers. A great ending to our time in Budapest!

double time escalators

June 11, 2008

Our first full day in Budapest! We started off the day with class and a tour of the Academy of Music. Getting to the Academy required taking the Budapest metro systems, which was quite different from any other metro station we’ve been in so far. Buying tickets took about thirty minutes for the 50 of us because most of the machines only took coins, and we only had thousand dollar bills to pay with. After everyone got their tickets, we had to validate them and then ride down the most intense escalator experience of my life. The stairs were going about twice as fast as any escalator I’ve ever ridden; I’m sure it was hilarious to watch all of us get on them. You had to get a running start to get on, and then you had to run to get off as well. The actual subway seemed to go faster as well. They mean business here in Budapest!

We had to switch lines in order to get to the east side of the city, but we had all bought the wrong ticket so we ended up just walking as group the rest of the way to the Academy. It was interesting to see the city and the locals…they have a very different sense of fashion than any other city we’ve been in so far. I saw a very fashionable pair of “man”-pris (what we call capris that guys wear) overalls and another guy wearing Daisy Dukes. That is one European fashion that I hope stays in Europe!

The Academy ended up being pretty cool. We got to tour the apartment of Franz Liszt, and our professor got to play on the same pianos that Liszt played on. The little Hungarian lady that led our tour was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. When Dr. Haydon started to play, she blushed and closed her eyes and swayed back and forth. She spoke pretty decent English, but whenever she needed to speak to another museum worker she would switch over to Hungarian…which is the strangest language I’ve ever heard.

We had a couple hours of free time after the Academy, so we did what every good American would do: we went to McDonalds. It was cheaper here than its been in any city so far, and it had been a very long time since we had eaten completely normal food. I got a cheeseburger, fries, a coke, and a salad for 990 HUF. It was awesome. We walked down to the Chain Bridge after lunch and took lots of pictures and then just chilled next to the river for a while. It started to rain (what else is new?) so we hid under a tunnel until it let up.

We toured the opera house in the afternoon, which was interesting to see. It was very similar to the opera house in Paris, but without all the legends. The opera house was in a really neat district of Budapest, all around were shops and stores with really interesting things to look at. We found an antique shop run by three old Hungarian ladies who loved to talk. We spent a lot of time chatting around and looking at everything in the store. So cool!

We walked all the way back to the hotel instead of trying to figure out the metro system again, and just as we walked in the bottom fell out of the sky and it poured. We chilled in the hotel for a while, and then went to a restaurant to watch a soccer game with some guys. From there we went back to IF to take advantage of free internet again. It was a good first day in Budapest!

Buda or Pest?

June 11, 2008

Today was a long travel day. We left Villach about 8:30, and didn’t arrive in Budapest until about 6:30pm. The drive was pretty once again; we saw lots of vineyards and rural Austrian countryside. We stopped in a small Austrian town for lunch…and got gelato again! Typical cuisine appears to be more along the lines of sausage and potatoes. The guys like to call it “man food.”

I’m not sure exactly when we cross over the country line from Austria to Hungary, but when I woke up from a nap and looked out the window to see really long words with lots of consonants and accents, I knew we were close to Budapest. It’s difficult to describe Budapest; it’s definitely way different from any city we’ve been too so far. The city much more modern than anything I saw in Italy, but there are still some older elements to the city that you would never see in America. They use the Hungarian Forint for their currency, and 1 USD is worth about 157 HUF. It felt strange when I pulled out 7000 HUF for the two days we will be here. Overall things are cheaper here than in the US, which is a very nice change.

Our welcome dinner was the best we’ve had yet. We ate salad with vegetables, which everyone has been craving for a while. I can’t remember the last time I ate a serving of corn! After dinner we went exploring the area around the hotel. Unlike past cities, we are right in the heart of the city. There is a long street full restaurants, bars, and coffee shops that are very eclectic and fun to visit. We went to a coffee shop/bar called “IF” and ordered tea and coffee. I had forgotten how much I missed going out for coffee! The atmosphere of the place is great, and the best part is that they have free internet. We will be visiting them often over the next two days, that’s for sure.

The keyboard is different in Austria!?!

June 4, 2008 Today we visited Vatican City! I was completely unprepared for what an incredible experience the whole thing would be. The weather was gorgeous, which we were all so thankful for after dealing with rain for so many days. It took about an hour to drive into the city, and we made it just in time for our reservations to the Vatican Museum. We used a tour guide provided by the museum instead of being guided by Dr. Medina, and she wasn’t near as interesting or enjoyable. The museum was very interesting though. The tour ended in the Sistine Chapel, which was very different than anything I had expected. We had been briefed on the artwork beforehand since they do not allow any talking in the chapel, but by the time we arrived there were so many people in the room that there was plenty of talking. There were guards stationed throughout the chapel to prevent people from taking pictures, and they were very serious about their job. One person tried to take a picture and the guard ran over to him screaming and made him delete it from his camera. Needless to say, commotion like that definitely takes away from the sacred-ness of the chapel, but it was still amazing to see. After we left the museum we walked around the edge of Vatican City and into St. Peter’s Square. The weather was still gorgeous so we just sat down and ate our hotel-packed lunch. There were lots of street vendors around, so we went window shopping for a while and bartered for rosaries and cross necklaces. At 3pm we met up with our group to tour St. Peter’s Basillica. St. Peter’s is the largest church in the entire world, and houses Michelangelo’s Pieta, and some of the most holy relics in the entire world. It is built over the grave of St. Peter, or what they believe to be his grave. The whole building is incredibly symbolic because Christ called Peter the rock that the church would be built on. We were able to go into the catacombs under the cathedral and see the tombs of all the Popes, including Pope John Paul II. There were people kneeling and praying at his grave even still. They also have marked the location of St. Peter’s body as well. After climbing the catacombs Gwen and I climbed to the top of the dome for an incredible view of Vatican City and all of Rome. We took the tram back to the hotel and then went in search of food for dinner. We found a little restaurant near our hotel that looked reasonably priced, so we decided to eat there. When the waitress came to seat us, she saw that we were American and asked us if we wanted the English menu. Of course we said yes…but that ended up being not such a great idea. Apparently they had just taken their Italian menus and used a translation website to get the English version, because everything was a literal translation. Literal translations of Italian food items do not sound very good, by the way. For example, meat choices included “slices heifer,” “pork cow,” and “soft turkey finger.” We ended up ordering pasta “to the chef” which we hoped was just the chef special. It was very good and inexpensive. We went out for gelato after dinner (of course) and then out to the Trevi fountains. Getting there was an adventure because the subway line that we were suppose to take was closed, but we managed to find our way there on busses. The fountains were incredible at night; we sat on the steps and talked for a long time. We got home late, packed, and prepared for a day of driving. June 5, 2008 Today we drove from Rome to Venice. I can’t say too much about the scenery that we saw between the cities because I wasn’t awake for very much of it. The bus rides are something that I look forward to more and more each time. Its so nice to have a relaxed day where you aren’t pressured to see everything. We made a stop in Verona on our way, which you might remember to be the setting for Romeo and Juliet. We saw Juliet’s balcony at the Capulet estate, and took pictures of the boys next to the statue of Juliet. We got into Padova a little before dinner which gave us time to unpack and have Bible Study. Our welcome dinner was the nicest we’ve had so far. This hotel is pretty high class…everything is very ornately/borderline cheesily decorated and they are already on edge about us being here. After dinner we came back up to the room and watched a movie. It was a pretty chill day overall…a nice change of pace for once! June 6, 2008 Today we got explore the city of Padova. We had two lectures in the morning, and it was funny to hear us all complain about how miserable that was. We are definitely one spoiled group of kids! We had a little time before we were suppose to meet at the Scroveni chapel, so we walked around and looked for a place to eat lunch. We found a little cafeteria place with a really nice lady working there. When she found out we were American she got really excited and asked us a lot of questions about our country. She said that she wants to come very badly! It was great to be so well received. In general, Padova hasn’t seemed quite as touristy as the other cities that we’ve been in, so its been a good opportunity to see what Italian culture is really like. The chapel that we went to housed Giotto’s paintings for the Arena Chapel. It was probably one of my favorite churches so far. The temperature and humidity of the entire building is controlled very tightly and before we were allowed to enter we had to sit for 15 minutes in a “purification room” so that they could adjust the humidity accordingly. It was intense. After the chapel we walked down to St. Anthony’s Basilica, which was really interesting to see because they are celebrating St. Anthony right now. All of the relics were on display and there were many people in the chapel praying and getting blessings. The chapel itself was very interesting; it was much more eclectic than any other chapel I’ve been to; they had artwork from as late as the 1980’s. It was cool to see the church still growing and changing. On our way back from the chapel the bottom fell out of the sky and we got back to the hotel soaking wet. We decided just to chill out for a while, and I went on a search for free wireless in the hotel. I found that if you get in the very corner of the hotel you can get a signal from the apartment complex across the street…hence my updates and pictures. J We heard that there was a plaza in town that lots of college kids hang out at, so we decided to trek down and see what it was like. We ended up finding a great family owned pasta restaurant that was cute and homey on the inside. The chef came out and took our orders in French, since he didn’t speak English and we don’t speak Italian. We all ordered new things that we didn’t understand and everyone’s order ended up being wonderful. Even though we were the first people in the restaurant (which tends to happen a lot; we are hungry at 7:30 when most Italians don’t seem to be hungry until at least 8:30 or 9:00 pm) by the time we left the place was completely full with local families. We stayed at the restaurant for a good two hours talking and having a good time. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and hung out with people in our room, to the disapproval of all the hotel staff. June 7, 2008 First of all, I want to say congratulations to my cousin Mandy! She is getting married today and I am pretty bummed not to be there L Today was our first day in Venice. To get there we took a train from Padova to Venice and then bought vaperetto passes (the public transportation system of Venice…boats, of course). From the moment we stepped off the train I couldn’t believe how beautiful everything was. I kept having to remind myself that what I was seeing was real, and not some Styrofoam imitation like in Disney World. The weather was beautiful and the colors of the buildings and the flowers were incredible. Our ride to our first museum was so much fun. It was about a twenty minute boat ride and every second was beautiful. The museum we went to, the Accademia, was great. For lunch we ate in a square with several cafés and lots of street vendors. Gwen and Courtney tried to buy a purse from them, but there was some miscommunication and he tried to sell them a bag for 100 euros and proved it was real by lighting it on fire. Needless to say, they ended up not purchasing a bag. We walked to St. Mark’s square for a little while before we had to go to our second museum of the day, the Peggy Guggenheim museum. St. Mark’s was absolutely incredible; there were birds everywhere and bands playing typical Italian music. It was a very stereotypical Italian scene. The Guggenheim was a very modern museum, but I liked the artwork a lot more than the Pompidou. The location of the museum was gorgeous; it was right on a canal with windows everywhere. There were some interesting statues outside the museum as well… On the way from the Guggenheim back to St. Mark’s, I ran into one of my residents from this past year. It’s a small world, that’s for sure! Several people on the trip saw people that they new throughout the day; the Italian film study abroad program that Tech sponsors was also in Venice that weekend. There were also lots of study abroad groups from other colleges in the US around. I would venture to say there were probably more Americans in the city than Italians! I brought some bread with me for lunch, but instead of eating it we fed it to the birds. There are so many that as soon as you come out with food they start to pile on top of one another trying to get it. If you have any in your hand they will climb all over you as well. That combined with a lack of fear of humans makes for lots of birds all over people. It was kind of gross, but a lot of fun! We had a few hours to kill before we needed to be at the concert hall for the Four Seasons Concert, so we decided to ride the vaperetto around and sightsee for a while. We wanted to stop somewhere on the water for dinner as well, so we thought riding around would be the best way to find a place. We didn’t pick the best vaparetto for that, however, and we ended up going into more of a residential area without many places to eat. It was also only 7pm, which is very early for dinner. We ended up switching boats and eating at a little snack shop on the water. We met people from San Diego and made friends with our waiter. Before the concert we all congregated in the square outside the chapel and ate gelato. There were some kids playing soccer and the guys went and played with them for a while…very cute! The concert itself was wonderful. It was just an 8 piece ensemble, but they were phenomenal. The venue was also very neat; it was a restored chapel. Hearing music in a church is very different from the typical concert hall setting. After the concert was over Freddie came to pick us up from the last vaperetto stop. As we waited for everyone to arrive Freddie played some of his favorite Celine Dion music and even turned the lights on and off to create a real disco tech! It was well after midnight by the time we pulled into the hotel, and we all went straight to bed. A great first day in Venice! June 8, 2008 Today was probably the best day I’ve had on the trip so far. We had class in the morning, and then free time for the rest of the day. We decided to visit Murano, the glass-making island of Venice. The vaperetto ride to the island was absolutely incredible. It was another gorgeous day and being out on the water was perfect. Murano was fabulous as well. It was much slower-paced than Venice, and there were less street vendors around. Almost every shop on the island sold murano glass, and all of it was beautiful. There were small pieces and large pieces, and a huge range of prices. My favorite part was just walking down the street and looking at all the buildings. Almost every single window has a window box with colorful flowers pouring out of it. Before leaving the island we stopped again for some gelato and went for another vaperetto ride over to St. Marks. We walked down some of the smaller streets and window shopped for a while once we back in Venice. We chilled on the steps of the square once again and listened to all the music and rested for a while, soaking in the city. We decided it would be less expensive to eat in Padova, so we rode back to the train station. On the boat on the way there, the boys yelled out “caio bella” to all the other boats that passed us. They wanted to use their now-perfected Italian accents one last time, and it made for good competition to see who could get the most nods and smiles. I’m sure we looked like stupid Americans, but we had a lot of fun. When we got back to Padova we walked to a restaurant that some people had been to the night before and highly recommended. When we got there, however, it was 8:30 and the restaurant had already filled up for the night. We asked to be put on the waiting list, but they refused. They told us there wasn’t any room, which was quite a new experience. I don’t know of any restaurant in America that would blatanly refuse to serve people! In the end, however, it turned out to be the best possible thing that could have happened to us. Ergo the saga of dinner our last night in Italy: As I mentioned earlier, the first restaurant that we went to refused to serve us. They gestured down the street a little and said something about there being a similar restaurant further on that might still have some room. At this point we were starving, so we decided to see if we could find the place. We walked for what seemed like a really long time and came across nothing. We turned back around, and this time the girls went in to see if they would be any nicer to us. They were just as rude as the first time, but we pulled out our map and asked the waiter if he could please tell us where any restaurant was. He circled a place 9 or 10 blocks from where we were, but being desperate, we decided to head over there. (I should probably mention that at this point we were starting to panic. Since it was Sunday, there were no grocery stores or cafés open, so we didn’t know how in the world we were going to get food if we couldn’t find a restaurant.) Along the way we passed a cheap pizza place, and we lost some of the group to the pizza. There were a few us that just really wanted pasta for our last night in Italy, so we decided to press on and see if we could find the restaurant that had been recommended to us. When we got to the place the waiter had circled, there was no restaurant to be found. We asked some people walking down the street if they knew where any nearby restaurants were, and they said that there wasn’t anything close by. Lauren knew of a bar/café that they had eaten lunch in a few days earlier, so we decided just to go there and see if we could eat some sandwiches…we were so hungry we could settle for anything at this point. We walked into the bar and sat down, but when the waiter came to serve us he said that they were only serving drinks…no food. I thought that we were all going to cry. I asked him if he knew any place in town that was still serving food (at this time it was about 9:30 pm) and he smiled and said he knew just the place. He motioned for us to get up and follow him, and we did just that. We thought he was just going to point out where to go, but instead he walked with us three or four blocks through alleys way out of the tourist area, mumbling the whole time about how you just had to know the right place to look. I started to worry that he might be taking us to some sort of secret mafia kidnapping area, but all of the sudden we were at the steps of a quaint Italian restaurant. He walked in and called for the owner to come out, greeted her, and pointed to us and said something in Italian. She nodded and smiled and then motioned for us to sit down. There was no one else in the restaurant, but we didn’t care. They served food and that was good enough for us. A few minutes later the chef came out and started babbling off in Italian what was on the menu. We managed to get across to him that we didn’t speak any Italian, and then he began to speak pretty decent English. We had menus, but none of us ended up ordering anything from them. I told him I wanted gnocchi, and when he asked what type of sauce I told him whichever one he thought was best would be fine with me. He grinned, kissed me on the head, and told me I wouldn’t be disappointed. They brought out bread for us to eat before our food arrived, and we went through two complete baskets in no time at all. I’m sure the waitress thought we were pigs, but we were literally about to pass out. Shortly afterward our food came. I could try and describe exactly how good it was, but I am sure that I couldn’t do it justice. I ended up getting gnocchi with pesto, and it was the best thing I’ve eaten so far this trip…maybe even the best thing I’ve eaten in my entire life. Everyone’s dish was wonderful, so we asked the waitress to get the chef so we could tell him how great everything was. He came out of the kitchen very concerned that we had a problem with our food, but when we said that we just wanted to tell him how wonderful it was, he beamed and kissed our hands and told us we didn’t know what we were talking about. After we finished our food, we wanted to order tiramisu one last time. When we asked him about it, he told us that he makes the best tiramisu in all of Italy, but he refuses to prepare it in the summertime because the humidity isn’t right and the dessert is to delicate to handle it. He offered us a list of other things we could eat, but we decided to just call it a night. He sat down and chatted with us for a while, asking us where we were from and why we were in Italy. He was excited to hear that we were students, and asked all about where we were studying. We asked him a little about himself, and he told us all about how he was actually from a town close to Pompeii, the most important town in Italy. I asked him how long he had been a chef, and he said that he refused to be called a chef, he was simply a bar tender. Before we left for the night we asked to get a picture with him, which thrilled him to death. As we were walking out we asked him his name. He handed us his business card and told us “Luigi.” The perfect name of a perfect chef who cooked perfect food and made our last night in Italy absolutely PERFECT.

don't mess with Italian bus drivers!

June 3, 2008: a LONG day in Rome

Today has got to be one of the longest days of my life. We woke up to pouring rain outside, so our teachers reworked our schedule to give us the morning off. We were suppose to go on a walking tour of the Roman ruins, but instead they suggested a few indoor sites around the city that we could visit on our own. Our group decided to visit the Cornaro Chapel, which houses a Bernini sculpture called “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.” Seeing the statue was amazing, but it also felt good to be in the chapel and get out of the rain for a little while. From there we went to the Capucci Crypts…probably the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. When monks were forced to move their monastery hundreds of years ago, they dug up all the monks that had been buried at their cemetery and brought the bones with them to their new location. But instead of reburying them, they decided to arranged them artistically all through the basement of their church. They groups the bones by their size and type and made designs on the walls, arches, and even lampshades! Very strange, but very cool. Our last stop of the morning was to see the chains of St. Peter at San Pietro in Vincoli. Two metro rides and a ton of steps later, we were there. They were encased in glass at the front of the church, and whether or not they were real they were very cool to see.

As we left St. Peter’s, the weather started to clear up. We met with the group at the Campolini Museum and Dr. Medina walked us through some of the ancient Italian art that they have there. It was interesting to see, and it felt good to be inside for a while. We headed over to the ruins after our museum tour, which involved crossing a major street in front of the Italian capitol building. Before we crossed, the tour group ahead of us decided to ignore the light and keep walking. This upset a bus driver, who started to go even though they were in front of him. That made their tour guide really mad, so he went up to the front of the bus and started yelling something in Italian. It is never a good idea to yell at any Italian driver, and this case is no exception. The bus driver threw the bus into park and got out and started fighting with the tour guide. Moral of the story: Don’t cross until the light says you can.

The ruins where absolutely amazing to see. Some of the pillars that were built up 2000 years ago are still standing and cannot be torn down….they have been trying for hundreds of years. We walked over to the Coliseum, which is probably one of the most impressive structures I’ve seen yet. Not only can it hold 70,000 people, there were aqueducts built leading up to it that could fill it with water for various events held there. Let’s see the Atlanta stadium do that!

We all rushed back to the hotel from the ruins to eat, shower, and get ready for the orchestra concert. We visited our new favorite pizza place for dinner…staying next to the university has been very beneficial for us; cheap good food is everywhere! It was fun to get all dressed up for a change, and going to the concert was a lot of fun. The concert hall was pretty modern, shaped in shape of cello! The orchestra was fantastic and it was so good to hear live music. Afterwards we headed to a gelataria close to the hotel, and then into our rooms for the night to try and get some time on the internet. Tomorrow is our last day in Rome…I can’t believe its gone so fast!

Buddy!

June 2, 2008: Happy Italian Unification Day

Today was our first full day in Rome. We started off the day with a much better breakfast than anything we had in Florence, and then we had an art lecture on the Sistine Chapel, which we will be seeing Wednesday. Apparently the 2^nd is an Italian National Holiday—Unification Day—so many of the local businesses were closed. Our group leaders rearranged our schedule a little, and we went on a Roman Church Tour of the city. We started at the Pantheon and then visited several other Baroque era churches. The pantheon was absolutely incredible. Even though most of the bronze was stripped to build the Vatican, the sheer size of the building was amazing. The dome was the largest in the world when in was constructed, and they left a perfect open circle at the center of it to let in light and lighten the weight of the dome. Since it was raining (yes, it was raining AGAIN…at this point we are just use to it…) you could see mist coming in the oculus; it was a beautiful sight.

The other churches that we visited we just as beautiful and ornate. They did a lot with combining sculpture and paintings, making the ceilings really look 3D. We also saw the place where Julius Caesar was assassinated while on our walking tour. Apparently they were digging a line for the subway and all the sudden discovered a bunch of ancient ruins. It was difficult to make out any buildings, but apparently running across sites like that is a pretty common thing in Rome. Dr. Medina said that’s why there subway system isn’t very spread out or useful…they keep running into archaeological sites!

After the church tour we were on our own for a while, so we decided to visit the Trevi Fountain. We ate lunch at a pizza by the kg place, and then went in through coins in the fountain. Legend has it that if you throw in coins you will come back to Rome some time in your life. I only threw in 3 American pennies though, so it may not be for a while… The fountain was gorgeous—it was probably one of the largest fountains I’ve seen and took up most of the face of the building.

We took a bus to the Borghese Museum and saw many Bernini sculptures. He is officially my favorite artist. The work that he did is so intricate, its something you can stare at for hours and always fine a new detail you missed didn’t see earlier.

We were pretty tired after the museum so we decided to head back to the hotel for a while. We headed in the direction that we thought lead to the metro station, but we never ended up getting there. After staring at a map for a while, we ended up talking to a tram driver who told us to get on his tram and he would just tell us when to get off. It was my first tram ride ever…and it was a lot of fun. The driver was true to his word and we got off right next to the hotel.

Some people did laundry for a while, but I took a glorious nap. I woke up and went with some people to get pizza at a local place next to the hotel. It was my cheapest meal yet…3.50 E for a good slice of pizza and a ton of breadsticks. It was also delicious. The hotel staff told us that there would be fireworks at the Coliseum in the evening because of Unification Day, so a large group decided to head over after dinner. We couldn’t figure out what bus to take over there, and every person we asked told us something different, so we decided just to walk. When we got there it was very evident that were not going to be any fireworks. We think the hotel staff might have made it up just to get us out of the hotel for a couple hours J. We still got to see the Coliseum at night though, which was good, and then we took the night bus home. Overall a great day!