Last weekend I went to Munich, Germany. I went with a travel company called.. “bus2alps” who takes people on busses from different spots in Italy to different parts of Europe. My friend Dave and I had been planning this trip together for a long time. We left on Thursday night at 7:30pm and arrived in Munich at about 2:30am. We got a few hours of sleep and then it was time to enjoy our weekend in Germany. Here are the high lights.
-Munich being one of the five richest cities in the world..and it being very obvious.
-The amazing cars throughout the entire city.
-Mike’s bus tour! On Friday we went on a 5 hour bike tour throughout Munich! It was so funny seeing 40 of us riding bikes through the city when most of us haven’t ridden a bike in years. We got to see all of the major sites and drove through the prettiest park. (apparently one of the biggest in the world) We also stopped at the world’s 2nd largest beer garden where we ate authentic German food and drank authentic German beer. (And then got back on the bikes..which was comical enough in itself) It was really fun and I’m glad I did it!! Would do it again in a heart beat!
-The pub crawl we went on Friday night. We got to go around Munich to traditional bars and meet tons of people. It was another great time.
-The BMW Museum and Welt. Very, very cool. The museum was gorgeous and had some of the first BMW's produced and the most recent. Motorcycles, cars, everything. They even had simulations you could participate in. It was definitely a high tec museum. This made me want to own a BMW some day even more!
-Going to Spring Fest!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On my list of top 5 things I’ve done while in Europe. We basically walked into this huge area which was a carnival. At first you’re thinking… “No big deal, I’ve been to a carnival before.” Then you see this HUGE white tent that says.. “Spring Fest” You walk in and it’s the FUNNIEST thing I’ve ever seen. It has a traditional German band playing so loud, tons of Germans dancing on wooden chairs and tables wearing the traditional German dresses and suspenders, chanting, drinking liters of beer, an ASSEMBLY LINE of sooo many servers just getting liter and liter of beers from men pouring it from hugggeee wooden barrels. The servers rushing around carrying 8 liters of beer at a time. It was so much fun, I can’t even describe it. I felt like it was traditional Germany. Dave and I sat with all Germans and they were so funny, putting their arms around us, telling us to sing. It was just an all around awesome time.
-Hofbrauhaus: The Famous Beer Hall in Munich! Traditional German food and beer again. (Which was very good. I tried it and was proud of myself!) Women going around selling pretzels, music, dancing, the whole deal. Apparently that place is rocking 7 nights a week.
- Basically Munich=Beer
-The amazing views on the way home going through Austria. Again, unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
-Germany making me miss Rob a lot because I know how much he would’ve enjoyed it and being determined to have him go sometime!
So yes, Germany was everything I thought it was going to be and more. Couldn’t have asked for a better last weekend of major traveling!!
This past week we had our "Final dinner" with all of the students from my University. It was at a place called the "Grand Hotel" which is a gorgeous, famous hotel in Florence. It was beautiful. We all got dressed up and had an amazing 3 course meal. They even had a red carpet when we walked in! haha. Pretty funny.
Lake Como got cancelled this weekend! :( I don’t think the company had enough people signed up. I spent the weekend in Florence which was really nice to relax and catch up on things. I officially have 11 days left in Italy! Oh my goodness! Basically they will consist of finals, packing, cleaning the apartment for our inspection, possibly a beach trip, and lots of Italian food and wine!!
What an experience this has been! Can’t wait to see you all and share more stories and photos with you!
Oh ya….my camera is broken. It won’t charge for some reason. So I have no camera for my last 11 days here. (Add it to the struggle list!! Haha) Good thing for disposables!!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Spring Break: Switzerland, Spain, Italy
Well..better late than never. I have been on a whirlwind of traveling through Europe. Spring break began April 3rd and ended April 13th. Over that time I went to Switzerland, Spain, and back to Italy. I left on April 3rd and took a train by myself to St. Gallen, Switzerland. This was an adventure in itself. The train left from Florence’s Santa Maria Novella station at 8am. It took about 2.5 hours to get to Milan. Once in Milan I had about an hour and a half to grab some breakfast and get on my next train. 10 minutes before my train was set to depart that station I went over to look at the board which tells you the track the train will be departing from. Trains always, ALWAYS run right on time in Italy. Which is a good thing, but kind of unusual for us Americans expecting delays every time we try to travel. I noticed after a few minutes the track wasn’t coming up on the board, so I figured maybe the train hadn’t pulled into the station yet. Plus there were 30 other people around me who seemed to be doing the same thing. 2 minutes before the train leaves someone yells..”hey, the trains here…it’s over on track 7! Quick its gonna leave!” We all go booking it over to the track..we’re looking at the train…and it simply..pulls away. Yes..this was an interesting moment. Apparently they forgot to post the track on the video monitor but has posted it on the board AT the track the train was leaving from. Umm..not helpful if you don’t know where that is. So now I’m pretty concerned because I have to hope there is another train leaving that day going all the way to Zurich, Switzerland and that they don’t charge me to get on it. Let’s just say: God was looking out for me. There was another train leaving for Zurich in 2 hours and they switched my ticket for free. I was laughing as all this was happening because all I could think was.. “My life. Classic Jill Walsh struggle #1.” I got on the train 2 hours later and rode that train for 4.5 hours to Zurich! That train was crowded but really not too bad. I passed the time reading and going to the restaurant car to have snacks and drinks. HaHa. That was my favorite part. The ride was also beautiful. We were driving through some of the prettiest land I have ever seen. Right through the Swiss alps. Unfortunately (struggle #2..obviously) when I went to take pictures, to my surprise my camera wasn’t working because…the battery was for some reason..not inside. So now I’m thinking…”Okay, I left my camera battery in the charger in the wall in Italy and have no camera for spring break. Crap.” All I have from that scenic beautiful sunny trip are images in my mind. I don’t think pictures would’ve done them justice anyways. I wish I could’ve put all of you on that train with me to see what I saw.
I finally arrived in Zurich around 7:00pm. Here I got off the train and now had to make my way to an inner city train to get to St. Gallen (Where my friend Lindsay lives) I figure by this point I am a train expert and it will be no problem. This elitist attitude was quite defeated once I got off the train and realized everything was now in German. Ops. A small detail I didn’t consider. Not only that but this train station was the most crowded, insane station I’d ever been in. Maybe because it’s basically central Europe…but whoah! Thankfully I found someone who spoke a little English and was able to purchase a ticket to St. Gallen. You should’ve seen me getting on this inner city train with all my luggage. Quite, quite comical. These are the kind of trains people ride home from work with nothing but a briefcase. So needless to say: They hated me. After an hour train ride, I finally arrived in the cute swiss city of St. Gallen! Lindsay was there to meet me and we were ready to begin our Swiss adventure! That evening I was quite tired but managed to go out to dinner with Lindsay and her friends. Here I discovered why I was glad the majority of my vacation would be in Spain and not Switzerland. To my surprise, SWITZERLAND IS THE 2ND MOST EXPENSIVE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. (Right behind Norway) To give you an idea of what that entails. They use the frank. Which is very compareable to the US dollar. I went out to eat and got a salad and 2 beers. My bill was 34 franks!!! YEP. Get me outta there! Of course that didn’t stop us from going to get chocolate fondue right after. They’re not kidding when they say the Swiss have good chocolate. That night we went back to Linds, where I slept extremely well. On Saturday Linds showed me around St. Gallen and we got pretzels and hot chocolate. At this point I randomly suggested maybe we should purchase on train tickets that we needed for a week later for when we flew back into Switzerland and needed to take the train to Italy. We debated whether or not to do this because usually we just buy our tickets 2 days in advance. Well…..needless to say the lady at the train station LITERALLY laughed in our faces. (The Swiss are very rude..FYI) Apparently we didn’t consider we were trying to take a train back to Italy on EASTER WEEKEND..AKA The busiest holiday of the year. She simply said… “All trains are booked.” We tried Thursday and Friday. All booked. Linds and I then left the train station basically in shock wondering how the heck we were going to get back to Italy after Spain. We basically…walked around and tried to think strategically. Oh and she also mentioned all flights would be booked if we had to resort to that. GREAT! Lol. So now we’re like.. “ummm..do we rent a car??” hahaa Lindsay and I driving from Switzerland to Italy..can you imagine. After thinking for an hour I finally decided the only option was to pull a Nancinator. Yes, my friends, pull a Nancinator. What that entailed was obviously going back to the train station…working with a different employee..refusing to work with Mrs. Attitude and sitting there until she found 1 train that still had to open seats either on Thursday or Friday. Waddaayaknow. Within an hour we had 2 seats booked for a train on Friday from Zurich to Italy. Thank goodness I’m not afraid to bust out the Nancinator when necessary. BahahaJ
Okay, so after Saturday experience Lindsay and I were ready to take off to Barcelona! We had to wake up at 3:30am Sunday morning because our flight was at 7:30am out of Zurich, which meant we still had to take a train from St. Gallen to Zurich. Obviously we had a minor problem and as we’re walking to the airport Linds decides… “Ya know..I think that we may not be able to get to the train station on time if we keep walking. We need to find a cab.” This put a worried look on my face. It was pitch black, 3:30am in this middle of a swiss town that you rarely see cabs in and we’re in the middle of a deserted road. At this point I thought we may literally miss our flight. Needless to say..God, once again, to the rescue. Thank God for answered prayers. At 3:30am in the middle of St. Gallen, on a deserted road, comes a cab driving on by. Lindsay flags him down, he stops, we get in, we make it to the train on time. And definitely would’ve missed it if we kept walking. I don’t know what it is with me..I’m always part of a random struggle but it always works out. That’s what makes my life comical. J HaHa. Needless to say, I’ll skip the airport details and just say..we made it to Barcelona!! Woo finally time for some fun in the sun!
We arrived at Barcelona airport and we were psyched! The sun was shining and we were ready to enjoy our spring break! I was proud of Linds and I at this point because we found ourselves now in a Spanish speaking land and managed to get ourselves on the right train, which lead us to the subway station, where we got on the right line, off at the right stop, and found out hostel in the middle of Barcelona! Woot woot! I feel like I could travel anywhere now. On planes, trains, subways, taxis, cars and be able to figure out how to get places. (obviously with numerous struggles, but none the less eventual success. Haha) Lindsay and I unpacked at our hostel, which was named “Kabul.” Which yes we referred to the whole trip as “Afghanistan..” because the name made us laugh every time and all we could think about was the middle east. We then went out and walked around Barcelona and toured the main street, Las Ramblas, which had a lot of great vendors and food. We also went and sat down by the Port which was beautiful. We had dinner that night typical Spanish Tapas. (Im so proud of myself for trying new foods! As we all know how picky I am!)And also had our first round (of many) of Spanish Sangria! (YUM!) I would also like to say I took Spanish from 6th grade to 12th grade and could probably remember all of 5 words. I know so much more Italian in one semester. Goes to show ya how great the language programs are at the middle school and high school. (BLAH!) Anyways, that night Linds and I sampled the “happy hour 2 for 1 Beer” special that goes on at our hostel every night. HaHa Hostels are a very funny place. They are definitely not my thing as far as having to share a room with random people, and sleeping in beds so many people have slept in, and kind of dirty etc…but the atmosphere is definitely me. I love how it’s a melting pot of people from all different places, backgrounds, cultures. There’s always music playing, people are always excited and laughing. It makes me happy. I love meeting people from all over and hearing what they have to say about life and worldly issues and listening to their accents. The first night there Linds and I met people from Manchester, England and listening to their views on the US and Obama were so interesting. (Some of them actually didn’t like him…can you believe it!?) That got me pumped! HaHa. That night (since we had been up since 330am) we slept very well once again!
Okay, instead of going with the day by day play by play here I think I’ll list some of the highlights from our next few days in Barcelona:
-Shop, Shop, Shop=Amazing paintings and jewelry. Definitely sucked Linds and I in.
-Sitting outside at a restaurant in 80 degree sunny weather watching the street performers coming up near our tables and singing, dancing, playing the guitar, juggling, doing comedy.
-The juggler that asked Lindsay to volunteer who proceeded to ask her to stand on his shoulders in the middle of the entire group of customers at the restaurant. When Lindsay agrees he stands all the way up with her standing straight up on her shoulders. Her face is priceless in the pictures I have. Not to mention the video I have of her putting her down, when a gust of wind comes, her skirt flys up, and she moons all of Barcelona. Priceless.
-Going to the beach and having it be really relaxing until people try to sell us things every 5 minutes including massages, henna tattoos, beer, water, etc. Us finally giving in and paying 5 euro for 15 minute massages. When Linds is getting hers done the cops start walking down the beach and the massage lady stops massaging Linds and starts hiding behind her chair because apparently what they’re doing is illegal. Oh man..entrepreneurship at its finest.
-We get told we look European, not American. That was interesting.
-Climbing the Christopher Columbus Monument and being in the smallest elevator I’ve ever been in, in my life.
-Our daily necessary siesta, if we planned on fiesta later in the night.
-The way that in Barcelona no one even GOES OUT until 2am, so whenever an activity was planned at the hostel they asked us to MEET at 1:45am. Nuts.
-The amazing Flamingo show.
-The boy from Ireland who I meet whose name is Brian (like my brother) and has the same birthday as my brother. Very weird.
-The night Lindsay tried to get in the VIP section of the club and when asked by security “do you know these people?” She says, “Yes, they are my friends.” The security officer then looks at the people who actually belong in there and ask, “Do you know this girl?” The respond, “No, not at all.” Lindsay is then hated by all club security. Way to go Linds. Lol
-The night we go back to the hostel after being out and a random man comes up to me and claims, “It was rude of me not to say bye at the club and to leave him and OUR friends not telling them where I was going because usually when you come as a group you leave as a group!” I had no clue who this man was. Quite comical.
-Park Guell: Amazing Gaudi artwork.
-Sagrada Familia: I didn’t think this place was cool at all. Overrated and I’ve seen much more impressive in Italy.
-Petra: The most amazing restaurant ever! The menu was printed on wine bottles, the lights were made out of silverwear, the good was unique and amazing, and the pricing was unbelievable.
-Seeing 2 of our random friends from BABSON in the middle of Barcelona at 3am. Priceless. It’s a small world after all.
-Never having to show a passport or go through customs throughout this entire journey between Switzerland, or Spain or Italy. Pretty unbelievable.
-Realizing once I got to Spain I had my camera battery all along it was just in the side pocket of my bag still in the charger.
And so we got back on our flight to Switzerland On Thursday!! We spent Thursday night in St. Gallen, then woke up Friday morning and got on our train to Italy! (I know what you’re thinking..there hasn’t been a struggle in a while…something has to go wrong soon.) Don’t worry..IT DID!
Linds and I get to Milan and think we have 2 hours until our train leaves. Randomly I say to Linds lets double check the time. We do that and realize we had converted military time wrong (I know…pathetic on my part with my relationship being based off of it haha) and our train leaves in 2 minutes. We legit RUN to the train, hop on, and it pulls away. Once again..Thank you God. Once on the train Linds and I realize the lady in Switzerland must’ve not been kidding about how booked the trains were because it was absolutely nuts. We also realize she booked us on the last open train which just happens to be an inner city train, which means it will take us 3.5 hours to get to Florence, instead of 2.5. The train is so packed Linds and I can’t get down the aisle with our luggage and for 3.5 hours have to sit on the floor between two train cars leaning against the bathroom. BRUTAL. Actually at this point we were both laughing because it was honestly comical. We finally arrive in Italy at..I don’t even know..I believe 930ish. I take Linds to my favorite restaurant for an authentic Italian dinner that night..YUM! And we hit the sack.
High lights from Lindsay’s trip to Italy:
-The amount of people here. HOLY MOLY! I have never seen that many people in Florence ever. Apparently they weren’t joking when they said.. “Busiest holiday of the year.”
-Lindsay’s face every time she saw Gelato. Lol
-Pulling a complete Nancinator on the manager at Golden View when we have the worst service ever. Him trying to fix it by giving us free alcohol and me telling him, “I don’t want free alcohol I want better service. We’ve already been here 3.5 hours, we don’t want to be here one more minute and won’t be back.”
-Nothing being open because of the holiday so Linds not being able to do anything touristy.
-The amazing, BEST weather we’ve had here yet.
-Our amazing American brunch where we ate so much food because we both miss American breakfast so much.
-Easter dinner where we reminisced about our families and both got homesick but reflected on how amazing it has been being abroad.
All in all. It was a great spring break. I’m so glad I decided to go where I went, do what I did, and go with Lindsay. We had an awesome time and it was such an experience! Although hectic at times, everything always worked out and we managed to travel without any major disasters. And I actually came home without losing anything!! That was the most amazing part! J
Thanks for readingJ
*I would post pictures but lately it’s taken forever to post them on this site so I will most likely just show them to you all when I get home!*
I finally arrived in Zurich around 7:00pm. Here I got off the train and now had to make my way to an inner city train to get to St. Gallen (Where my friend Lindsay lives) I figure by this point I am a train expert and it will be no problem. This elitist attitude was quite defeated once I got off the train and realized everything was now in German. Ops. A small detail I didn’t consider. Not only that but this train station was the most crowded, insane station I’d ever been in. Maybe because it’s basically central Europe…but whoah! Thankfully I found someone who spoke a little English and was able to purchase a ticket to St. Gallen. You should’ve seen me getting on this inner city train with all my luggage. Quite, quite comical. These are the kind of trains people ride home from work with nothing but a briefcase. So needless to say: They hated me. After an hour train ride, I finally arrived in the cute swiss city of St. Gallen! Lindsay was there to meet me and we were ready to begin our Swiss adventure! That evening I was quite tired but managed to go out to dinner with Lindsay and her friends. Here I discovered why I was glad the majority of my vacation would be in Spain and not Switzerland. To my surprise, SWITZERLAND IS THE 2ND MOST EXPENSIVE COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. (Right behind Norway) To give you an idea of what that entails. They use the frank. Which is very compareable to the US dollar. I went out to eat and got a salad and 2 beers. My bill was 34 franks!!! YEP. Get me outta there! Of course that didn’t stop us from going to get chocolate fondue right after. They’re not kidding when they say the Swiss have good chocolate. That night we went back to Linds, where I slept extremely well. On Saturday Linds showed me around St. Gallen and we got pretzels and hot chocolate. At this point I randomly suggested maybe we should purchase on train tickets that we needed for a week later for when we flew back into Switzerland and needed to take the train to Italy. We debated whether or not to do this because usually we just buy our tickets 2 days in advance. Well…..needless to say the lady at the train station LITERALLY laughed in our faces. (The Swiss are very rude..FYI) Apparently we didn’t consider we were trying to take a train back to Italy on EASTER WEEKEND..AKA The busiest holiday of the year. She simply said… “All trains are booked.” We tried Thursday and Friday. All booked. Linds and I then left the train station basically in shock wondering how the heck we were going to get back to Italy after Spain. We basically…walked around and tried to think strategically. Oh and she also mentioned all flights would be booked if we had to resort to that. GREAT! Lol. So now we’re like.. “ummm..do we rent a car??” hahaa Lindsay and I driving from Switzerland to Italy..can you imagine. After thinking for an hour I finally decided the only option was to pull a Nancinator. Yes, my friends, pull a Nancinator. What that entailed was obviously going back to the train station…working with a different employee..refusing to work with Mrs. Attitude and sitting there until she found 1 train that still had to open seats either on Thursday or Friday. Waddaayaknow. Within an hour we had 2 seats booked for a train on Friday from Zurich to Italy. Thank goodness I’m not afraid to bust out the Nancinator when necessary. BahahaJ
Okay, so after Saturday experience Lindsay and I were ready to take off to Barcelona! We had to wake up at 3:30am Sunday morning because our flight was at 7:30am out of Zurich, which meant we still had to take a train from St. Gallen to Zurich. Obviously we had a minor problem and as we’re walking to the airport Linds decides… “Ya know..I think that we may not be able to get to the train station on time if we keep walking. We need to find a cab.” This put a worried look on my face. It was pitch black, 3:30am in this middle of a swiss town that you rarely see cabs in and we’re in the middle of a deserted road. At this point I thought we may literally miss our flight. Needless to say..God, once again, to the rescue. Thank God for answered prayers. At 3:30am in the middle of St. Gallen, on a deserted road, comes a cab driving on by. Lindsay flags him down, he stops, we get in, we make it to the train on time. And definitely would’ve missed it if we kept walking. I don’t know what it is with me..I’m always part of a random struggle but it always works out. That’s what makes my life comical. J HaHa. Needless to say, I’ll skip the airport details and just say..we made it to Barcelona!! Woo finally time for some fun in the sun!
We arrived at Barcelona airport and we were psyched! The sun was shining and we were ready to enjoy our spring break! I was proud of Linds and I at this point because we found ourselves now in a Spanish speaking land and managed to get ourselves on the right train, which lead us to the subway station, where we got on the right line, off at the right stop, and found out hostel in the middle of Barcelona! Woot woot! I feel like I could travel anywhere now. On planes, trains, subways, taxis, cars and be able to figure out how to get places. (obviously with numerous struggles, but none the less eventual success. Haha) Lindsay and I unpacked at our hostel, which was named “Kabul.” Which yes we referred to the whole trip as “Afghanistan..” because the name made us laugh every time and all we could think about was the middle east. We then went out and walked around Barcelona and toured the main street, Las Ramblas, which had a lot of great vendors and food. We also went and sat down by the Port which was beautiful. We had dinner that night typical Spanish Tapas. (Im so proud of myself for trying new foods! As we all know how picky I am!)And also had our first round (of many) of Spanish Sangria! (YUM!) I would also like to say I took Spanish from 6th grade to 12th grade and could probably remember all of 5 words. I know so much more Italian in one semester. Goes to show ya how great the language programs are at the middle school and high school. (BLAH!) Anyways, that night Linds and I sampled the “happy hour 2 for 1 Beer” special that goes on at our hostel every night. HaHa Hostels are a very funny place. They are definitely not my thing as far as having to share a room with random people, and sleeping in beds so many people have slept in, and kind of dirty etc…but the atmosphere is definitely me. I love how it’s a melting pot of people from all different places, backgrounds, cultures. There’s always music playing, people are always excited and laughing. It makes me happy. I love meeting people from all over and hearing what they have to say about life and worldly issues and listening to their accents. The first night there Linds and I met people from Manchester, England and listening to their views on the US and Obama were so interesting. (Some of them actually didn’t like him…can you believe it!?) That got me pumped! HaHa. That night (since we had been up since 330am) we slept very well once again!
Okay, instead of going with the day by day play by play here I think I’ll list some of the highlights from our next few days in Barcelona:
-Shop, Shop, Shop=Amazing paintings and jewelry. Definitely sucked Linds and I in.
-Sitting outside at a restaurant in 80 degree sunny weather watching the street performers coming up near our tables and singing, dancing, playing the guitar, juggling, doing comedy.
-The juggler that asked Lindsay to volunteer who proceeded to ask her to stand on his shoulders in the middle of the entire group of customers at the restaurant. When Lindsay agrees he stands all the way up with her standing straight up on her shoulders. Her face is priceless in the pictures I have. Not to mention the video I have of her putting her down, when a gust of wind comes, her skirt flys up, and she moons all of Barcelona. Priceless.
-Going to the beach and having it be really relaxing until people try to sell us things every 5 minutes including massages, henna tattoos, beer, water, etc. Us finally giving in and paying 5 euro for 15 minute massages. When Linds is getting hers done the cops start walking down the beach and the massage lady stops massaging Linds and starts hiding behind her chair because apparently what they’re doing is illegal. Oh man..entrepreneurship at its finest.
-We get told we look European, not American. That was interesting.
-Climbing the Christopher Columbus Monument and being in the smallest elevator I’ve ever been in, in my life.
-Our daily necessary siesta, if we planned on fiesta later in the night.
-The way that in Barcelona no one even GOES OUT until 2am, so whenever an activity was planned at the hostel they asked us to MEET at 1:45am. Nuts.
-The amazing Flamingo show.
-The boy from Ireland who I meet whose name is Brian (like my brother) and has the same birthday as my brother. Very weird.
-The night Lindsay tried to get in the VIP section of the club and when asked by security “do you know these people?” She says, “Yes, they are my friends.” The security officer then looks at the people who actually belong in there and ask, “Do you know this girl?” The respond, “No, not at all.” Lindsay is then hated by all club security. Way to go Linds. Lol
-The night we go back to the hostel after being out and a random man comes up to me and claims, “It was rude of me not to say bye at the club and to leave him and OUR friends not telling them where I was going because usually when you come as a group you leave as a group!” I had no clue who this man was. Quite comical.
-Park Guell: Amazing Gaudi artwork.
-Sagrada Familia: I didn’t think this place was cool at all. Overrated and I’ve seen much more impressive in Italy.
-Petra: The most amazing restaurant ever! The menu was printed on wine bottles, the lights were made out of silverwear, the good was unique and amazing, and the pricing was unbelievable.
-Seeing 2 of our random friends from BABSON in the middle of Barcelona at 3am. Priceless. It’s a small world after all.
-Never having to show a passport or go through customs throughout this entire journey between Switzerland, or Spain or Italy. Pretty unbelievable.
-Realizing once I got to Spain I had my camera battery all along it was just in the side pocket of my bag still in the charger.
And so we got back on our flight to Switzerland On Thursday!! We spent Thursday night in St. Gallen, then woke up Friday morning and got on our train to Italy! (I know what you’re thinking..there hasn’t been a struggle in a while…something has to go wrong soon.) Don’t worry..IT DID!
Linds and I get to Milan and think we have 2 hours until our train leaves. Randomly I say to Linds lets double check the time. We do that and realize we had converted military time wrong (I know…pathetic on my part with my relationship being based off of it haha) and our train leaves in 2 minutes. We legit RUN to the train, hop on, and it pulls away. Once again..Thank you God. Once on the train Linds and I realize the lady in Switzerland must’ve not been kidding about how booked the trains were because it was absolutely nuts. We also realize she booked us on the last open train which just happens to be an inner city train, which means it will take us 3.5 hours to get to Florence, instead of 2.5. The train is so packed Linds and I can’t get down the aisle with our luggage and for 3.5 hours have to sit on the floor between two train cars leaning against the bathroom. BRUTAL. Actually at this point we were both laughing because it was honestly comical. We finally arrive in Italy at..I don’t even know..I believe 930ish. I take Linds to my favorite restaurant for an authentic Italian dinner that night..YUM! And we hit the sack.
High lights from Lindsay’s trip to Italy:
-The amount of people here. HOLY MOLY! I have never seen that many people in Florence ever. Apparently they weren’t joking when they said.. “Busiest holiday of the year.”
-Lindsay’s face every time she saw Gelato. Lol
-Pulling a complete Nancinator on the manager at Golden View when we have the worst service ever. Him trying to fix it by giving us free alcohol and me telling him, “I don’t want free alcohol I want better service. We’ve already been here 3.5 hours, we don’t want to be here one more minute and won’t be back.”
-Nothing being open because of the holiday so Linds not being able to do anything touristy.
-The amazing, BEST weather we’ve had here yet.
-Our amazing American brunch where we ate so much food because we both miss American breakfast so much.
-Easter dinner where we reminisced about our families and both got homesick but reflected on how amazing it has been being abroad.
All in all. It was a great spring break. I’m so glad I decided to go where I went, do what I did, and go with Lindsay. We had an awesome time and it was such an experience! Although hectic at times, everything always worked out and we managed to travel without any major disasters. And I actually came home without losing anything!! That was the most amazing part! J
Thanks for readingJ
*I would post pictures but lately it’s taken forever to post them on this site so I will most likely just show them to you all when I get home!*
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Month of Visitors!
---------------------Sorry the spacing is so messed up with these photos. I'm not sure why it does that. Im trying to fix it. For now, I'd suggest, keep scrolling down until you get to the text, read the text, then scroll back up to see the pics!!------------------------- :)
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So I've definitely been MIA the month of March! I had a month of visitors! It started off with a week long visit from Rob! Which was awesome! We basically spent most of our time in Florence showing him around the different sites here. We went to the Duomo, The Accademia (where The David is), Pitti Palace, Ponte Vecchio, and sooo many great restaurants. We also took a day trip to Pisa to see the Leaning tower of Pisa. It was pouring rain and freezing so that was kind of a bummer, none the less we got the infamous Tower picture. Unfortunately the one picture we have in front of the tower my camera lens got water on it and made it blurry. (figures..haha) We basically just spent the week spending quality time together before he left for deployment! Thankfully it was beautiful in Florence all week except the day Rob left, when it began pouring. I'm just really thankful everything worked out and Rob was able to come here. Now he's off on his deployment and doing well. I'm looking forward to it almost being 2 months down in deployment by the time I get home!
The week after Rob left..it poured all week and I got bronchitis. (Needless to say..not my favorite week in Florence) This also made me miss my trip to Prague which was a MAJOR bummer! I'm trying to find some time to fit it in though at some point..we'll see.
Last week my mom and sister came to visit. It was really nice to have a touch of home in Florence. We again ate tons of good food. The second day they were here we went on this awesome wine tour. We went to a bunch of different little towns throughout Italy. In Chianti we went to a farm where they make wine and saw how/where they make it and had a wine tasting. We also stopped in Siena so I was able to show mom and Meg where I spent my first month in Italy. When I walked into my old hotel the man at the front desk says.."Welcome back!" I was shocked at this, considering there were 200 students staying there with me. I was more than impressed. On Saturday mom, Meg, and I went to Rome. In Rome we saw the Vatican and the Colliseum. Its quite hard to do Rome in a day but I think they saw the two most important things...so that was a plus! From Sun-Wed we stayed in Florence. Meg and mom got to visit a ton of the sites. Unfortunately I had class most of these days and a ton of papers I had to write. That was a bummer. We still managed to go out to dinner every night though and even had time for a hilarious round of kareoke one night. (We won't go there..lets just say...Meg has it on video..haha) Mom and Meg left Thursday morning. It was sad to see my "piece of home" and last visitors of the month depart:(
This weekend I stayed in Florence, relaxed, and recuperated from having all of my visitors! Unfortunately, after nice warm weather last week it seems to have gotten much colder! And I also am sick again! ahhh. Im hoping that I get better fast and its not bronchitis like last time. That would not be good! 2 more weeks until Spring break! I will be going to visit my friend Lindsay (from Babson) in Switzerland, then we're going to Barcelona together for 4 days, then she is coming back to Italy with me for a few days! I'm definitely looking forward to that, and just focusing on getting healthy before then! Once spring break is over I have 4 weeks left and then I'm home! Pretty crazy! Hopefully I'll be able to blog on the road or after all my trips. Hope all is well with all of you!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Carnivale & Rome!!
Well..I’ve been on the move! Two weeks ago I attended the Italy version of Mardi Gras..they call it “Carnivale” It’s basically this couple week celebration different weekend in February in all different spots across Italy. We decided to attend the one in Veregio, Italy. Vereigo is a beach town about 2.5 hours from Florence. We took a bus there and then went to lunch at an AMAZING restaurant. Maybe the best food/service I’ve had in Italy yet. They just kept bringing course after course and were so fast. They were feeding a hundred of us and to them it seemed like no big deal. The first thing I noticed about this place was that instead of having wine on the table they had COKE! HaHa. Very unexpected. We were all actually really excited because soda is extremely expensive in Italy..the same and sometimes more than alcohol! Haven’t quite figured out why yet. I was so excited, yet for some reason never drank any and only had water. It’s almost like I got so used to not having soda I didn’t want it. Anyways, enough about our meal. After our meal we headed off to Carnivale. At this point we were all in food commas and not even in the mood to go. I was not excited at all and decided I may have over anticipated the fun of this “carnivale.” We ended up getting off the bus in Veregio and had about an hour until the parade started. It turns out Veregio is a beach town right on the coast. Suddenly we stepped onto a beach and I sunk my feet into the Mediterranean. Man, did that feel good. Next thing I know I look up to my right and in the distance can see gorgeous mountains with snow on them. All I could think was: “How many times in your life can you stand on a beach, look up, and see mountains with snow on them?” That’s when I knew it was going to be a good day. That combined with the blazing sunshine. (Which we haven’t had a lot here in Italy) Turns out..when all was said and done, it was the BEST parade I’ve ever been too. At carnival basically everyone dresses up in costumes (Kind of like Halloween) or masks, and everyone throws confetti around (and I mean everyone) and sprays silly string on each other. I’m talking from ages 1 month old to 90 years old. That’s what made it the best. I feel like the US doesn’t have anything like that. Everyone enjoyed themselves..all ages. The parade is made up of the best floats I’ve ever seen in any parade. They all have a certain meaning (political, social..etc) They often make fun of politicians. They even included Bush is one of the floats getting roasted in a pan. Lol. They (as you can imagine with his foreign popularity) had a float with a fake Barack Obama wishing him “good luck” HaHa. The whole thing was just a pretty great experience and I’m really, really glad I went.
This past weekend we went to Rome Thursday-Sunday. I know that everyone thinks of Rome as just a bit city filled with tons of people, that isn’t that beautiful..but the truth is…I think it has some of the most amazing places to visit in Italy. In just 3.5 days I saw SO MUCH. Not only did I see so much, but so much of it was really interesting. In the off season of tourism in Italy, as it is now..it really isn’t that crowded. When I was there I saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, The Vatican, St. Peter’s Bisilica, The Sistine Chapel, The Coleseum, and many other random places. I also got to hang out with my friend Kara who is studying abroad in Rome. She loves it there. I really like it, but I don’t think I’d like being in such a big city. I actually was anxious to get back to the comfort of Florence, by the end of the trip. The last night in my Rome my friends and I went on the “Spanish Steps Pub Crawl.” This was basically a bunch of students going from bar to bar. All of the bars were differently themed, such as there being an Irish Pub, a Scottish Pub, and the “jail bar.” The Jail Bar was the most creative of the three. The bartenders were actually dressed up in black and white jail suits and they were “behind bars” which made it seem like they were in jail. HaHa.
Oh and here is what I decided on for a travel itinerary:
March 5-8th: Prague
March 12th-15th: Somewhere with Mom and Meg when they are here!:) Probably Tuscany or Venice, Italy
March 27th-29th: Still deciding if I’m going to do Dublin, Ireland this weekend or not
April 3rd-12th: Spring Break! I am going to Switzerland to visit my friend Lindsay who is from Babson and studying abroad there. We are staying in Switzerland for a few days then going to Barcelona, then from there Lindsay is coming back to Italy with me for a few days before she heads back to Switzerland.
April 16th-19th: Munich, Germany Mini Oktoberfest!
April 24th-26th: Lake Como, Italy
May 1st-May 3rd: Last weekend in Florence!!
May 7th: HOME!
When I break it down like this it seems pretty quick huh? HaHa. In fact, in a week, I’ll be half way done this journey! Oh and all of those trips are going to be by bus or train except Ireland and Possibly Switzerland to Barcelona….so wish me luck! Hahaha. You all know I hate to fly and this way I’ll hopefully get to see more of Europe as I’m traveling. Does anyone have an advice for traveling around Europe by train or bus? Feel free to throw it out there to me….:)
Alright, Well I actually have a lot of work I need to get done, since I was a slacker in Rome all weekend. I’m so glad everyone has Skype now by the way. It’s so nice to talk to all of you!
PS: I don’t go back and proofread these because I’m usually in a rush and just typing in a mad rampage as I’m remembering the details of everything I’ve been up too..so sorry if there are errors/typos..(I know that bothers some people tremendously..cough Bud…cough Bud…) ;)
This past weekend we went to Rome Thursday-Sunday. I know that everyone thinks of Rome as just a bit city filled with tons of people, that isn’t that beautiful..but the truth is…I think it has some of the most amazing places to visit in Italy. In just 3.5 days I saw SO MUCH. Not only did I see so much, but so much of it was really interesting. In the off season of tourism in Italy, as it is now..it really isn’t that crowded. When I was there I saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, The Vatican, St. Peter’s Bisilica, The Sistine Chapel, The Coleseum, and many other random places. I also got to hang out with my friend Kara who is studying abroad in Rome. She loves it there. I really like it, but I don’t think I’d like being in such a big city. I actually was anxious to get back to the comfort of Florence, by the end of the trip. The last night in my Rome my friends and I went on the “Spanish Steps Pub Crawl.” This was basically a bunch of students going from bar to bar. All of the bars were differently themed, such as there being an Irish Pub, a Scottish Pub, and the “jail bar.” The Jail Bar was the most creative of the three. The bartenders were actually dressed up in black and white jail suits and they were “behind bars” which made it seem like they were in jail. HaHa.
Oh and here is what I decided on for a travel itinerary:
March 5-8th: Prague
March 12th-15th: Somewhere with Mom and Meg when they are here!:) Probably Tuscany or Venice, Italy
March 27th-29th: Still deciding if I’m going to do Dublin, Ireland this weekend or not
April 3rd-12th: Spring Break! I am going to Switzerland to visit my friend Lindsay who is from Babson and studying abroad there. We are staying in Switzerland for a few days then going to Barcelona, then from there Lindsay is coming back to Italy with me for a few days before she heads back to Switzerland.
April 16th-19th: Munich, Germany Mini Oktoberfest!
April 24th-26th: Lake Como, Italy
May 1st-May 3rd: Last weekend in Florence!!
May 7th: HOME!
When I break it down like this it seems pretty quick huh? HaHa. In fact, in a week, I’ll be half way done this journey! Oh and all of those trips are going to be by bus or train except Ireland and Possibly Switzerland to Barcelona….so wish me luck! Hahaha. You all know I hate to fly and this way I’ll hopefully get to see more of Europe as I’m traveling. Does anyone have an advice for traveling around Europe by train or bus? Feel free to throw it out there to me….:)
Alright, Well I actually have a lot of work I need to get done, since I was a slacker in Rome all weekend. I’m so glad everyone has Skype now by the way. It’s so nice to talk to all of you!
PS: I don’t go back and proofread these because I’m usually in a rush and just typing in a mad rampage as I’m remembering the details of everything I’ve been up too..so sorry if there are errors/typos..(I know that bothers some people tremendously..cough Bud…cough Bud…) ;)
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