Ciao Study Abroad: Reflections

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This will be the last post about my study abroad, and I apologize about not having finished it sooner but it seems that life back in the US is just as busy as life in Europe. I am also not quite sure how to end such an adventure… and I am in denial about the program actually ending and publishing this post finalizes that my study abroad is officially over. I have written this post in many different places; Florence, Paris, some place over the Atlantic, and now in Chapel Hill. In each place I had a different view about my study abroad experience ranging from ‘going back to the US is only temporary. I’ll be back’  to  ‘that was the best time of my life and if I’m ever down while studying I can just think about the crystal blue water of the Mediterranean as inspiration to keep studying, get a good job, and go back’.

The last full day of my study abroad was sadly anticlimactic. I spent the Friday running around Florence packing, saying goodbyes, lugging 100+ pounds of luggage to the train station, cleaning the apartment, all while trying to get a last-minute glimpse of Michelangelo’s David and Botticelli’s masterpieces in the Ufizzi museum. Part of the feckless feeling towards the end stems from the finals. The last day of class we had our final exam, so there was no time to enjoy or reflect upon the experience with my classmates. We each took the exam and left the room when we were finished. My favorite final was for pairing food with wine where each group in the class made a dish (mine was chicken meatballs) and had a giant feast. Even on that last day after exams, the study abroad already seemed so far away since we had no reading or homework to do. Once classes were finished, the purpose of me being in a foreign country was gone and overnight I shifted from a student to a tourist and immediately began to feel guilty. Many of the other students in my program had been craving to go home for a while, though I was keen on traveling and spending more time exploring Europe.

My study abroad officially ended May 14 and on that day I took a train from Florence to Rome where evidently Florence and I had one common idea of wanting me to remain there- my train leaving Florence was over an hour late. Standing in the train station at 6 in the morning with 5 bags waiting for the train got me thinking. I began to reflect upon the amazing experience that I’ve had, and that this was the end of an era from one of the happiest semesters in school. In reminiscing about the study abroad, I broke down in the train station. Ironic that one of my best decisions I have made so far in my college career was to leave the campus and study at another school for five months. I chatted with a woman on the train and had to correct myself from “I am studying abroad in Florence er…I just finished my study abroad in Florence.”

After my study abroad ended I spent two weeks traveling from Rome, back to Florence, and then ending in Paris. When I went back to Florence it was not truly ‘back’ because there were no classes or fellow students. Additionally, I was eating from restaurants rather than making my own food from grocery stores. I frequented a gelateria next to my school where the owner eventually began to know me, and when I went there for my final time and told him, he gave me free gelato. I think it’s the little things that I will miss most. I thought that when I left Florence I would feel as if it was just another weekend trip where at the end I would come back to my apartment. However this was not the case.

In Paris I stayed with a French student who was studying in Paris so I received a true Parisian student experience. This consisted of making meals, going shopping, visiting the schools, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, riding around Paris on the velib (bicycle system where you pay a certain amount and you can get around on any velib bike wherever you want to go, park it, and can pick up any bike anywhere around the city. It’s great!), and picnics in parks. I even got my own personal French tour guide to take me through the districts and tell me the history of Paris, some of which was very fascinating. My French exchange student had a friend who lives in Versailles and gave us a great tour the palace. Versailles was extremely elegant, but also cruelly crowded which meant that throughout the main palace we were shuffled from one room to the next, unable to see anything. Versailles seemed a tad fake, but the sense of grandeur was undeniable and I see why citizens grew upset.

One aspect of French history that I was quick to realize was that they are very passionate about revolutions. On my last night of my study abroad experience, I was taken to a rally organization where students were in the early stages of planning a protest. I was very uncomfortable about this at first because almost every tourist site that I have visited strongly recommends to avoid protests. However, since this was just the preliminary stages of the protest I was not too uncomfortable about it…until I realized what they were opposing. Capitalism. I slowly tried to shrink down, hide my comfortable Nike shoes, and move my arm to cover the label on my shirt while secretly craving a McFlurry.

My final departure from Europe was a struggle- someone cut the power to the track that would take the train to the airport so I scrambled to find a shuttle bus that would take me to the airport. Five months of traveling in Europe were not for nothing and I was trained to plan for complications such as this, so I was still early for my flight leaving Paris. At this point in my trip I was happily anticipating my return to the US. The nine hour flight back to the US was exciting- and the best part was the ‘welcome home’ when I passed through customs. I knew I was back in the US because most of the workers I encountered spoke English as a second language- but each of these individuals were from different backgrounds and had different accents. There was congestion at customs because of new staff training and security did not like my laptop, but I finally made it! I was greeted with: a giant dinosaur skeleton in the Chicago airport. When I landed in Raleigh after almost 15 hours worth of traveling I was finally home and embraced by a huge ear-to-ear grin from my father (whose face I’m sure I was mimicking) and I had only seen via computer for the past 5 months- and it was finally when I got home when I realized how much I had missed it.

Trying to readjust the past couple weeks has been surprisingly easy. It took almost a week for me to stop waking up at 6 AM, but other than that it was fine. I jumped immediately into summer classes, lab work, and volunteering and find little time to actually step back and reflect on my study abroad experiences. I have printed out pictures from my study abroad and it does not feel real. When I explain all of the places that I have visited, people are just as shocked as I am when I begin the list. I feel so fortunate to have received this opportunity and I highly recommend studying abroad to anyone who is even considering it. I have made lasting friendships, memories, and skills. I do not know how to quantify how I have been changed by this experience, but I can definitely explain aspects about Italian life that I have taken with me to the US. I enjoy cooking especially now that I have widened my repertoire to more complex meals. My interest in culture and the arts have increased exponentially, while my ideas of what I really need to have with me has decreased. During my travels, all I needed was money and my passport and I knew I would be OK. I grew comfortable with traveling by myself without even a cell phone in case of emergencies. There are definitely aspects about my study abroad experience that I will miss, the primary being the ability to travel to another country a couple of hours away every weekend and have a completely new experience. I miss the great pizza and pasta of Italy- no pizza or pasta I’ve had since compares. I miss the great shopping, the smell of the leather carts that I passed on the way to class, the colors of thousands of scarves squeezed onto shelves, sunsets glowing along the Arno river, sitting in Palazza Signoria surrounded by statues and watching tourists and natives alike as they danced to music played by street musicians, speaking Italian, having unlimited access to art masterpieces, and taking classes where I get to experience the subject every day- Renaissance.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to study abroad- it made the world a smaller place in so many ways and yet also a bigger place in many ways. I enjoyed every second of the study abroad, even the points when I was running through airports. Thanks to everyone who followed my travels via this, or even if you just read one post (I’m sorry if I scared you away!) and just looked at the pictures. I loved sharing my adventures and I love reading your comments, thanks!

 

 

Firenze

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These past couple weeks in Florence have been filled with final papers, final projects, and final attempts to visit all of the attractions that I have yet to visit. It seems that just when I am becoming close with the other students and Florence, we have to leave. Also, a couple of my teachers are just now getting around to telling us good restaurants and places to visit. For example, my Italian teacher told us about an artisan that decorates paper like magic, and also that there is a Salvatore Ferragamo museum. I went to go to the Salvatore Ferragamo museum today, and they had closed yesterday until the end of May to prepare for the summer season. A couple of weeks ago I made a bucket list that includes all of the places yet to visit according to my “Top 25 in Florence” book. The easiest way for me to remember is to backtrack, so I will start with today and slowly reverse engineer my weeks in Florence, trying to only hit the highlights.

Saturday (after a couple of days of intense walking) I planned to take it easy, so I went to an exhibit close to my apartment about Anne Frank. This was not an uplifting start to the day. The entire exhibit was in English so I guess it was geared towards tourists. After that I went next door and visited Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. This was one of the houses of the Medici, so the magnificent rooms were decked from ceiling to floor in elaborate paintings, carpets, and chandeliers. However, there was not much to see since most of the rooms were being used for a conference and I’m not sure how much of the furniture is actually part of the original. The best part of the museum was the juxtaposition of technology in the workshop of Lorenzo- an extremely important figure of the Medici legacy. The room was an interactive with the tourists where a person would stand on a block facing a projection screen with a fresco of the Medici family as seen in the Chapel of the Magi and the tourist would point in the air to whichever person in the painting they wanted to learn more about, and the screen would know and start teaching about that person. Additionally, the room picked up the language that we were speaking so it knew that we were all speaking English and recited the script in English. Cool, no?!

After the Chapel of the Magi I noticed that the Baptistery was open, and I had written a paper on the fresco on the ceiling so I was excited to see it. The walls of the Baptistery are simple white stone, but the ceiling is entirely doused in a glittering gold Last Judgement. When you look up, a large figure of Jesus is staring down at you with the afterlife on either side. Opposite to the Last Judgement are scenes from the Scriptures. It was mind-boggling for me to conceptualize that Dante grew up and was inspired by this very art.

On Friday I went hiking in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is composed of five villages where hikers can travel between the cities on trails along the Italian Riviera- underneath the French Riviera. The trails vary from easy to extremely difficult, and in total it is a seven mile hike. One of the trails was closed, but other than that we hiked all of the trails. One of the trails was a simple walkway but the other two were extremely difficult with never-ending steep, rocky stairs. The makers of the path decided that the trail needed to be as high up the mountains as possible. Although this meant a lot of difficult hiking, it also meant stunning views. We went on a gorgeous, cloudless day that would have been perfect if my friend did not have an allergic reaction earlier. She is allergic to peanuts, and evidently the workers at the gelato store used the same spoon for the nut gelato as they did for her coffee flavor. She ended up being fine, but the hike took longer than it originally would have. After trying gelato in other cities in Italy, I have come to realize that Florence does in fact have the best gelato in Italy.

This week Florence is acting as a cultural hub to celebrate Europe. I am not sure exactly what this symbolically entails, but EU flags are all over the city and there are concerts in almost every big palazzo that I visit. This means that not only are tourists in the city (following their group leader who holds up an umbrella so that her group can be sure to stick together) but also all the Italians in Florence have come out of the woodwork! I did not realize just how many people lived in Florence until they were all out last night.

Another big event that happened in Florence recently was the TRL Italian Music Awards. I was very excited when I initially heard that Florence was to be home to the TRL Music Awards, but then we learned that only Italian artists would be singing. Although it was still fun, we only lasted a couple of songs because it was incredibly crowded and we were not acquainted with any of the artists. American artists did win awards, but for some artists they did not show the video to their winning song as they played it. I personally would have enjoyed the irony of Lady Gaga performing in front of one of Florence’s most prized Cathedrals Santa Croce (where famous Florentines are either commemorated or buried- Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo. I have included Michelangelo’s tomb in the slideshow).

Another famous event has come to Florence- Jersey Shore. Florence does not want Jersey Shore here, so they have severely restricted their filming (no historical sites, no public intoxication, no insides of clubs and bars) so it looks like they are restricted to their apartment. They are staying in an apartment above where some people from my school live, and they all had to sign forms saying things including that they will not bring strangers back. LdM is not happy about them being here and advised that the students not sign any forms (too late!).

With LdM we have opportunities to learn more about the culture, and one of them was a Tuscan Tasting event. This had a similar structure to my cooking class (instructor tells us what we are cooking and we make it) but the instructor prepared the majority of the meal while we watched. I felt like I was watching Rachel Ray live! The instructor was an energetic stereotypical Italian named Marco and he explained cooking tips as he prepared the food and was very fun to watch. His ‘pinch’ of salt was my handful. His ‘dab’ of oil was half the bottle. We made tomato soup- Tuscan style- not anything remotely resembling the canned style-, focaccio- thin, dense bread-, flowers (yes- flowers. We dipped them in eggs and fried them. They were actually not to bad but it was hard to get over the idea that I am eating a petal) bread slices with patte (chicken liver…) and biscotti (Tuscan cookies) for dessert. There is a reason why some foods just aren’t popular in the US- such as chicken liver paste. The meal together was delicious and I am glad that I signed up the activity because it gave me an opportunity to try something that I probably won’t go out of my way to try again (chicken liver).

As my classes are winding down, I want to discuss pairing food with wine. I thought that this class was going to be very simple, but it was more difficult than I anticipated. I am also surprised at how much I have learned. My confidence with cooking has definitely increased, and my ability to judge wine has significantly improved (though since I had no experience with wine tasting before Italy this statement does not really mean much). I noticed how much I had learned when I went to Greve, a town in the heart of the Chianti region. Because it is in the heart of Chianti, there are rolling fields of grape vines as far as the eye can see. We walked around for a bit enjoying the scenery and the freshness. I went to a fabulous wine tasting in Greve. It was a lot of fun because we payed a sum of money up front, received a card, and then walked around a giant room with a wine class sticking our cards into machines and having our choice wine pour out. My card was not working properly, so for most of the tastings no money was used. Excellent. I tried a 75 Euro (120ish Dollar) bottle of wine. Honestly, I could only tell a little difference from the 20 Euro wine that it was neighboring. The workers and other customers were impressed the our knowledge of classifying wine. Although the pairing food with wine does not give me any type of credit at UNC, I am very glad that I took this course. The other courses that I am taking do not transfer towards my grade point average, so I could get a C and the credits will still transfer. However, graduate schools look at these grades and I look at these grades and I cannot allow myself to do worse than my best (and seriously, if I get lower than an A in one of the most fundamental aspects of human life [eating] than I’m in big trouble). Going to Greve made me miss having a car. The castles and vineyards were a 5 kilometer walk away from the city center, which is only 3 miles and by car this is quick but by foot this is too long.

I have been taking folk dance as part of a club for my school and we had our final performance two weeks ago. I really enjoyed dancing to the songs that I once played on the piano.

For my Italian class final presentation, I had to visit a gold workshop. I met a man who makes some of the jewelry that is found on the Ponte Vecchio (famous bridge in Florence). The charming couple that owns the shop gave us a demonstration from the melting the silver beads to rounding the rod of silver. As I am writing this, I keep saying “lavoratore” and “negozio” which means worker and shop. This just goes to show how my brain has been trained to quickly think in both Italian and English. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to switch back to French (which I took for six years) when I go to Paris in a couple of weeks. Back to the shop…the man was very friendly and spoke only Italian, so it was great to get an authentic Italian experience.

I visited the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo for class field trip a couple of weeks ago. I have never seen a church quite like this- the interior is entirely decorated with marble and there is no religious paintings. This is the burial place for the later generations of the Medici family. The people who were supposed to be buried there died before completion (that’s Italy for you) and it still remains incomplete. However, the marble decorations are so complex that they made a school in Florence just so that students could learn how to make marble decorations for this chapel. The marble decorations are similar to paintings, but the paint never fades. Here is an example of a marble decoration: http://www.alangalindez.com/events/2010/_images/10.12_Italy/ItalyFlorence_CityCrest.jpg found in the chapel. All of the colors are different shades of marble found all around the world.

(side note: In Italian, an ending with an “i” (such as panini) generally means that the word is plural. Therefor you want one panino, and three panini. I realized how engrained this grammar rule was in my brain when I heard an American woman order “three paninis” and I cringed.)

I finally climbed the most symbolic building in Florence this week: the Duomo! The climb is windy and dark, but the view of the city from the top is completely worth the 450 or so steps. The stairs are situated in between the two domes of the Duomo, and at one point you get a great view of the interior of the church. To put it nicely, there are much more magnificent churches in Florence. The interior of the Duomo in Florence is disappointing compared to the elaborate marble facade.

I have been trying to cram in as much free art as possible in the past weeks, and my Uffizi pass has helped. There is nothing sweeter than seeing a two hour long regular line, a thirty minute long reservation line, and walking up to the security guy and have him escort me to a private security entrance and get my ticket to enter the museum.

This upcoming week I have exams and then one day of Florence on Friday and on Saturday I leave for Rome. I am starting to look forward to returning to the US, and there are a couple of aspects that the US has perfected that Italy has yet to realize. For example, dryers. Spectacular invention. If my jacket gets dirty, I don’t have to wait two days to be able to wear it again. Hair dryers. People just don’t use hair dryers as much in Florence. This may be because of electricity, or that straight hair is not valued as much. Either way, my hair is very happy to not be damaged from a straightener. The value of being on time. I have had a few city buses that were late, or just not show up at all (Sicily). Strikes. There was a transportation strike while I was in Cinque Terre, which meant that none of the regional trains from one city to the next were running, and we were either stuck in that city or had to hike 2 hours to the next one. I’ve also had a lot of ‘well, we are in Italy’ moments. I’ll try to define this for next time, but there definitely are extremely Italian moments. For example, I had to wake up the guy at the ticket counter for my museum ticket.

I am definitely going to miss all of the dogs that I’ve seen. I rarely see dogs walking around in cities in the US. While we were resting on a port in Cinque Terre, there was a couple with three large, fluffy, and friendly dogs. One of the dogs was curious about what was in the water and kept peering over the edge until finally jumping onto a boat. Both the owner and the other two dogs immediately jumped up upon realizing that the dog had almost reached freedom. Another time I was walking back from the grocery store and a woman was walking her German Shepherd puppy. The puppy did not feel like walking, so it stopped. In the middle of the crosswalk. The frustrated owner picked it up, carried it through the rest of the walk,  placed it back down, and then attempted to walk the puppy again but the puppy decided to defiantly, chest out, sit and peer up at it’s owner with a ‘what are you going to do now’ face. The owner was like ‘fine! fine.’ and unhooked the leash off the puppy and continued to walk forward. The puppy did not like this. It barked and then sprinted after its owner, ears flapping up and down, and continued to follow at the owner’s heel while occasionally sniffing at garbage.

Sorry for the delayed post but I hope everything is going well in the US!

Switzerland

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So I left for this trip without quite unpacking from Croatia- things just go by way too fast! My week in Florence was amazingly packed with visits and food, but I’ll save that for the next post.

This weekend trip (only Saturday and Sunday) was a lot of traveling where we would spend a couple of hours on a bus/ferry/train and then a few hours in the destination city. We left for Lake Como (I think Naboo for any Star Wars fans) from Florence around 6 AM…rough. It started raining on the way, which symbolizes the gloomy five hour bus ride. Como was not at all what I expected; it was dirty, peeling paint, not lively, and an all around tame city. The city over looks the lake and it has a lot of potential but it was too rainy and we had not anticipated this. We had a little under two hours in Como which allowed us to take pictures and eat lunch. The two hours were right at the beginning of siesta (the afternoon break Italians have) so most of the shops and even the cathedral were closing. Lunch was an absolute but comical disaster. We strolled along the lake trying to find a good restaurant, but many were closed and other were too touristy and still others were completely empty even though it was only noon. We managed to find a place that had outdoor seating (so we could see the lake) and reasonable prices that had pizza. However, when we sat down the chairs were still wet so the unsuspecting sitter (me) had a nice patch of water on my jeans for a couple of hours. The waiter gave us menus, but this menu did not have the pizzas on it like the restaurant advertised on the wall. We asked for the pizza menu, and he came out and gave us a wine menu. This was not for lack of speaking Italian- the people at the table had taken at least 2 years of Italian so we were well-versed in pronunciation and speaking. We asked again for the pizza menu, but he never returned. We decided that it was not worth trying to ask again, so we looked through the remainder of the dishes to determine what we could eat. We soon figured out that we were not only planning on getting the same dish, but we (7 of us) were planning on getting the cheapest dish because we had all seen the 3 Euro cover charge…this was when we decided that it would be best if we just leave now before we order. The waiter suddenly returned as we started getting up (no pizza menu) and asked what the problem was. We made up an excuse that we did not realize how late it was and that we were going to miss our bus, but he was still angry and started cursing at Americans- in both English and Italian. We quickly scurried away to his shouts and figured that we should probably go to a restaurant on the other side of the river. We found a nice outdoor cafe-type restaurant that was packed with people which generally means that it is a good place. The pastas on the menu were relatively cheap, so we decided to go here. The waiter did not serve us for over ten minutes and during this time we guessed that we had been black-listed in Como. Turns out, this was not a restaurant but actually a pasticcere, which means that they sell pastries. My hot chocolate was excellent- the pastas were microwaved. I noticed a word that looked like ‘defrost’ next to the pastas, so I figured that I should probably get a panino so I was not a victim of this disaster, but the other girls in my group all received lean-cuisine type meals. At least it was cheap! We walked around the market for a bit but with little enthusiasm, and we finally returned to the bus that would transport us to our next destination. In short, Como was not wonderful. However, I did see something that I had never seen before: a plane take off from the water! They had many planes there that were taking off and landing into the water, which was incredibly fun to watch.

We spent the next few hours taking a highway that runs along Lake Como to a ferry port in Cadenabbia where we took a ferry across the lake to Bellagio. Buses look awkwardly out of place and very vulnerable when on ferries. The sun was starting to shine, which significantly improved everyone’s outlook. Bellagio is a cute city overlooking the water and has a crisp, fresh atmosphere. There was expensive shopping, a nice gardens (that you had to pay to go in so we did not go inside) and a pleasant overlook to the lake and surrounding mountains. We found an excellent gelato place and enjoyed the scenery until we were shuffled off to the ferry to go to the hotel in St. Moritz for the night.

St. Moritz is situated unlike any other city I have visited. In order to get to the city, we had to climb 5624 feet above sea level up a mountain face, and once we got to the top it was a whole other world with a lake dotted landscape of the Upper Engadin. If I had not had a headache from the altitude, I would not have known that we were in the upper regions of the Alps. St. Moritz is in the valley next to a lake surrounded my overpowering snow-capped mountains. Even though it was the beginning of May, it was still below freezing at night- I wished that my winter coat was not already 4000 miles away. Apparently the lake was still frozen four weeks ago. During the winter, the lake freezes one meter, and they have massive horse races and skiers towed by horses in the races. There are only about 4000 people that live in St. Moritz, but during the peak holiday and ski season, there can be over 14,000 people. The hotel was the best that I have been in during my entire study abroad experience, you can judge a lot about a hotel by the soaps that they have, and this one had Dove.

The typical local dinner that night was disappointing- spaghetti with tomato sauce, turkey and french fries, and strawberry gelato for dessert. It was nice talking with other people in the program and reminiscing on the study abroad experience so far. It is just now that I am realizing how lucky I am by having great, conscientious roommates in my apartment. This makes a huge difference, and some of the students in my program have had their experience significantly tainted by their roommates.

Since most of the stores were closed, we ended up simply returning to the hotel after dinner and watched the CNN special about Prince William and Kate. I wonder if the royal wedding is popular in the US, because here the television networks aired the royal wedding (though they spoke in Italian the whole time so I ended up watching it online where it was in English) and some students skipped their classes to watch history.

The next morning I woke up early to get breakfast and walk around the lake. I enjoy the peacefulness of being an early riser to breakfast because there is more individualized service since there are fewer people. The food is also much fresher, and this continental breakfast even had fruit whereas none of the other hotel-included-breakfasts have had fruit. The breathtaking walk around the lake gave me time to reflect on my study abroad experience, which I will include in a later post, but basically I would not change a thing. The lake reflects the mountains like glass, so I got many lovely pictures. The fishing season started recently, so many people were out trying to catch fish (though I saw no success) and there were also many joggers and walkers. This reminded me very much of home in the south. Every person I passed would either smile, acknowledge, but mostly greet with a ‘morgand’ (spelling?!) which I figured to mean good morning. I wasn’t sure which language to greet these people because I know they speak French, Italian, German, and even English sometimes…so I just mumbled ‘morning’ back, which sounded similar to their ‘morgand’ which I think is close enough. The art of greeting.

I got back to the hotel where I loaded my stuff onto the bus and then we had a walking tour of St. Moritz. There are two parts to the city: Dorf (sounds like dwarf) and Bad (sounds like bawhd). The tour guide explained to us some history of the city (five English guys discovered how great the city was and brought their friends back) and how he is a ski instructor and enjoys going from helicopters. He has also been backpacking in the Himalayas. We took a long escalator up to the main part of the city that had ridiculously expensive shopping, but it was all closed because it is the down season. George Clooney has a house in Como, and he enjoys coming up to St. Moritz. George Clooney also had a house in Montecarlo and some of the other places that I have visited…he must have his own jet to get around so easily. The only store that I saw open was chocolate shop, where I dropped some bombs on my wallet.

After the mini-tour we trekked to the train station where we took the Bernina Express from St. Moritz to Tirano. The Bernina Express is a train that crosses the Alps that has countless jaw-dropping views from bridges and tight bends. We were surrounded by nature in every direction, and at some points the only thing around us was snow on the mountain. As we started our descent, we passed through smaller quaint towns that looked like fields from the Sound of Music. I was happy to be going downhill because my light-headedness from the altitude was slowly starting to disappear. One of the towns looked yellow from afar because of all of the dandelions. We arrive in Tirano a little after 3 where we ate a quick snack and then headed back to Florence where we were greeted with immense traffic in Milan so we did not get back until late.

Although we spent much of our time on buses and trains, I enjoyed all of the scenery on the trip and all of the friendly people in Switzerland. Maybe they are more friendly there than in Florence because they are surrounded by mystical scenery while in Florence the trees are minimal. Going from the clean air in Switzerland to the city air in Florence is a huge change where I have to force myself that Florence is known for their splendid art and culture, not their streets. Being my last overnight trip, I was somewhat disappointed though I do not think that it was truly hit me. Six more days of classes (two of those being review and two others being the exams themselves) and then I will be officially done with my study abroad! I am still not completely legal…remember that permit of stay that I mentioned early in the semester? I am supposed to pick up the final document from the consulate before noon, but my classes finish at 11:45. Hopefully I’ll be legal soon! Hope everything is going well in the US- I’ll be back in less than a month…!

Croatia

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I will try to catch up on what I have been doing in Florence, but for now this post on Croatia will have to do. I went to Croatia for Easter weekend, which was called a long weekend because I did not have school on Monday giving me a four day weekend rather than the normal three. I did this trip with a company so my transportation and housing were all paid. This was my last big trip (or so I thought at the time- I decided last minute to go on the school trip to Switzerland this coming weekend) and it was odd as I realized that I was packing for my last weekend trip.

The plan for the long-weekend was that we were going to leave from the bus station at 7 and arrive in Croatia the next morning around 6, which would give us time to take a short nap before heading out for the day’s events. However, the traffic in Italy over Easter is absolutely awful…it makes the US look tame. There were two bus loads of people going from Florence to Croatia, and these buses were coming from Rome. The traffic around Rome was so bad that the buses were two hours late getting to Florence. This meant that we did not leave Florence until 9. This was the longest bus ride I have ever (and hopefully will ever) rode. There is always that mentality that the grass is greener on the other side, and my bus thought that the other bus had more room in between their seats, but more than an hour sitting is very uncomfortable as you can imagine. We watched one movie on the way and took a rest stop for dinner, and thankfully I was able to fall asleep. However, I woke up around 2 AM to the bus being…stopped. We were stuck in traffic at 2 AM for a good two hours! The bus drivers had never seen anything like it, and we were all very confused and frustrated. On the route from Florence to Croatia meant that we had to pass through Slovenia, which is part of the EU and thus not a problem with border patrol, but Croatia is not part of the EU, which meant that we needed to pass through a border patrol to leave Slovenia and another to enter Croatia. We were very thankful that the border police passed the bus on through because it would have taken 45 minutes per bus at each stop and we were already behind. However, we were all slightly upset that we were not going to get another stamp in our passport. A couple more hours of sleep later I woke up to daylight in Croatia. Croatia is unlike any other country that I have ever visited, and I see it as an undiscovered gem. My cooking teacher said that Croatia has a desolate atmosphere, which looking back I agree with because the people are not very energetic. The country itself is the complete opposite- stunning. We traveled for a couple of hours passing through the hilly Croatian countryside which reminds me of a gray desert but with light foliage. The trees we passed by were no more than ten feet high and sparsely oriented. The bus leader had to shift all of our activities for the day a couple of hours back because our bus was coming in late, and the Rome bus had been stuck in even worse traffic so they were six hours behind. I heard that another travel company’s bus from Florence had gotten stuck in so much traffic that they missed their ferry to Greece! Traffic in Italy is horrible during Easter.

We arrived at our hostel in Split just in time for breakfast around 10 and then got our room keys. The rooms in the hostel were confusing. We were each given our own number that allowed us to get into the room. The number that we punched into the keypad that allowed us into the room was also the same number that we would punch into a keypad inside of the room that would open our own private locker. This technology was great- but the rest of the room was behind the times because we slept in cubby-like beds where the top bunk had an awkward step to the top so a couple of us almost fell. I did not realize until we had already picked our beds that the keypad that allowed us into the room was also personalized to a specific bed…I realized that whenever I would punch my number to get into the room a light would come on, and it took me a while to notice that whenever someone came in a different light would come on, and then it connected- our number was to a specific bed in the room so whenever we punched in our individual number our bed would light up! Too bad I realized this after we had already settled in, and I feel bad for the poor girl whose bed kept getting lit up whenever I left the room later at night.

The activity for the day was white-water rafting. I am not sure which river we rafted down, but there was not much white-water involved. The bus ride from Split took a little over thirty minutes until we arrived at a small shack that held gear for us to wear. The company provided us with helmets, life-jackets, wet-suits, and wet-suit-socks to help us stay warm. The air was warm but the water was chilly, so the wet-suit was an excellent idea even though they are not the most flattering outfits. The rafts held seven people plus a guide and I think there were about eight rafts though I am not positive because we were the first raft- we wanted the most experienced guide who could accommodate for our desire for an adventurous ride. Our guide was about 6’7″, had dreads, multiple tattoos, and wore short shorts (though this might have been an optical illusion because of his height). He knew five different languages and also worked as a ranger for the national parks in Croatia…basically a very interesting guide that had a lot of interesting stories. The river was about a level 1/2 where the 2 was being generous. My raft was called the ‘drunken dragon’ and had some problems…the most significant meant that we had to carry an air pump with us. The river was wedged between grey mountains covered with fresh green trees. At some points the river was so tame that we came to a complete stop and the wind was pushing us upstream. In other areas we were able to go through some fun but short-lived rapids. One area was so extreme that the boat was not allowed down it, so we all had to step out and walk around. We walked by an area that had water coming out of the mountain, and our guide started drinking out of it, so of course the 50 or so students had to try the water, and it was actually pretty good (and I did not get sick so it was safe too!). The guide also took us underneath a large waterfall where the front of the boat (me) got soaked. We also went jumping off of a rock that looked much higher up from the top of the rock than it did from the bottom. The jump was great! It was a rush of adrenaline from the jump- immediately followed by a rush of ice when I plunged into the water. One of the girls from another boat had a freak accident and dislocated her shoulder while jumping down and they could not get it back into place so that boat had to speed down the river so they could take her to the doctors in the city. Besides the dislocated shoulder, the remainder of the river rafting was very calm and beautiful and I wish I had brought my camera. We went through one rough part called the dirty devil and we had to paddle extremely fast up to the rapid and once we arrived we all had to plop into the center of the boat. It was fun watching other boats’s approach to the plop. My raft decided to leave our oars on the outside of the raft, but others stuck them straight into the air and since the rapids were pretty rough in this area, all I could see was eight oars bobbing and swaying in time with each other through the clouds of white. When we finished the rafting three hours later, we changed out of our wetsuits and headed back to Split for dinner.

Our guide recommended us a good exotic food place that we could not find, so we ended up at a restaurant that was a little too nice for our swimming attire. The food in Croatia is a mix of Italian and seafood. I am not a fan of seafood, but I am a fan of Italian so I tried to focus on that aspect. Every dish had some sort of fish, but the fish that I had in my pasta was surprisingly good. The currency in Croatia is much different from the US. One Euro is equal to 7 Kuna (spelling? It’s the Croatian currency) but this is about one Dollar to 5 Kuna. However, the prices for goods tend to equal out where a bottle of pop was 6 Kuna, so a little over a Dollar. The town of Split is right on the sea and our restaurant overlooked the sea, so we got a beautiful view of the sunset while eating dinner.

After dinner we went back to our hostel where we explored for a bit before discovering a terrace on the very top of the building that overlooked the city. This secret place was where we ended up going out every night to play cards and simply have a relaxing time.

The next morning we had a rather late start to our destination: the town of Bol to see the Golden Horn beach on the island of Brac. This meant that we had to catch a 50 minute ferry to the island, and of course our city was on the opposite side of the island so we had another hour bus ride to Bol, and then the beach was a good twenty minute walk from the bus station. However, the beach was 100% worth the long trip, and also the ferry and bus ride over gave us beautiful views of the mountains as they dive into the water. Similar to most beaches that I have recently visited, Golden Horn is a beach of pebbles. Unlike most beaches in the US, this beach had a nudist section. On the ferry ride over to Brac, I discovered that my camera has a super-vivid setting. My picture count for this weekend exponentially went up…over 500 pictures in four days! The sea was another stunning blue in contrast with the green of the mountain as it entered, and fading into the sky in the horizon. The last bus leaving Bol was a little after 4, so we probably spent more time traveling that day than actually being at the beach, but it was completely worth it. Laying out on pebbles is not as bad as it sounds, but I miss the sandy beaches of the US. The water of the Mediterranean is still unlike anything I have ever seen.

For dinner we took the company bus over to Trogir, which is a medieval castle about 30 minutes from Split. The town of Split was a huge castle where the streets inside are too small for cars, and everything is made from white stone and marble. Some remnants of the castle are still visible- the moat where they now have a jewelry market, a huge outlook tower, and the walls. The town of Trogir was similar to Split, but in a much smaller scale. We were able to walk from one end of the castle to the other in five minutes. The streets were incredibly narrow- only six or so feet across where everything is made of stone, but the stone has been so worn down that I unexpectedly slipped a couple of times. The restaurant that we went to for dinner was excellent- not only did we get water for free, but we got ice in it! And not just one cube, our cups were more than half full of ice. I appreciate water so much more now that I have been living in Italy. The outdoor atmosphere was friendly, a cat kept coming around and we quickly learned that it lived in one of the apartments nearby. The buildings inside Trogir and Split (and most of the European cities that I’ve visited actually) are all connected, which is probably because I have visited mainly cities because they are connected to public transportation. On the menu, my meal in Trogir looked very fancy, but it turns out that seasoned potatoes are actually french friends. And my unknown meat was actually steak with an egg on top. Pretty much glorified American food. The typical dish of Croatia that he let us try was a sweet pot roast with gnocchi-like objects. The food in Croatia is much creamier than that in the Tuscany region. Tuscany likes to have simple foods with strong flavors, which I have really started to appreciate. There are some foods that I have yet to try in Italy such as Bistecca Fiorentina (Florentine Steak) and Tripe (stomach…) but I have gone out of my comfort zone and tried octopus and chicken liver and decided that there are reasons why some foods are popular and others are not. I am also not to enthusiastic about putting stomach in my stomach…

Continuing on with Croatia- the next morning we took the company bus to Krka National Park, which is known for its waterfalls. This place was amazing! There are elevated bridges that we walked on that gave the feel as if we were walking through a jungle. The trees were vividly green (super-vivid camera!) and the waterfalls were slightly overwhelming in number, though beautiful nonetheless. At every turn there seemed to be a better view of the same waterfall. The highlight of the day was swimming in the water. Water in Croatia in April is not warm- I knew this. However, the waterfalls that we could go swimming under looked amazing and I really wanted to see what it looked like. I was with two other people and I decided to take the plunge first. I waded in (I would have jumped but there were too many large rocks) and was hit by ice cold water where my body was wondering what it had done to deserve such torment. I decided to just get it over as quickly as possible, but this is easier said than done. I frantically tried to swim to the rock in the middle of the lake where already five people were sitting in hope that I would soon get accustomed to the water temperature. However in water this cold, that never quite happens. I looked back to see how far behind my other two friends were, and they had not made it off the bank. I tread water for a bit to see if they were coming and wondered if it was really a good idea to be swimming in such cold water, decided no, but I continued to the rock anyways. The swim to the rock only took a little over a minute, but the water was so cold that my skin had already started to turn red. The group of us bonded on the rock for a bit about how icey the water was but how awesome the view from underneath the waterfall is. I decided to go underneath the waterfall and had a couple of guys on the rock wait for me in case I needed help. One was a lifeguard so I felt very safe. They were right- the view from underneath the waterfall was superb- It may be partly due to the fact that I was slowly going numb, but the world underneath the waterfall is slightly softer than on the other side. I distinctly remember having to force myself to breath because the water was so cold that a simple action as breathing became a chore. This was when I decided that I needed to go back. I swam back to the rock in the middle of the lake, caught my breath, and then returned to the bank. The current went with me on the way back, which was very helpful because the paddling action of my feet was not working very well. I now have a whole new perspective on what it means to be cold, though it was completely worth the ice plunge!

After Krka we returned to the hostel and got advise to go to dinner at an authentic Croatian restaurant- a cash-only kind of restaurant where the cook’s brother is your waiter. The food was a little bit too authentic for me (too much seafood) and apparently of someone else in our group because he got food poisoning after his bell-pepper stuffed with meat.

We had to leave Croatia at 11 the next day to return to Florence at a decent hour, but I woke up early so that I could explore Split for a little bit. I climbed to the top of a nearby mountain where I passed more cats than people. There was a darling outdoor restaurant with cushions for chairs that I would have enjoyed to eat at if we had enough time. Split was a nice little town, but the atmosphere is not touristy and somewhat low-key. Most of the people there spoke English so I had no trouble getting around, but I did learn a couple of words: phonetically spelled as doberdahn (hello, a greeting) and falla (thank you). With these two words I was able to have complete conversations with people! For example, I walked up to the ticket man on the ferry and said ‘doberdahn’ and he replied the same back, ripped my ticket, and when I received it I said ‘falla’ and he replied something and smiled. Complete conversation!

The bus ride back to Florence was, once again, filled with traffic. I have never watched so many movies in a row in my life- at least 7. I lost count after five and could not tell you in what order or what movies we watched. The customs leaving Croatia sadly did not stamp our passports, but the customs in Slovenia did! This meant that we all had to climb out of the bus and go inside of the station to get stamped, which took about 30 minutes. Thanks to traffic, I did not arrive back at my apartment until after midnight.

Every time I come back to Florence I get a sigh of relief of being done with traveling because for now, Florence is my safety and comfort zone. I will definitely miss it when I am gone. I am starting to take much more advantage of the opportunities I have in Florence and of the Uffizi pass that enables me to enter any state museum whenever I want- I can even skip the reservations line! However, the museums are getting much more packed and hot and some tourists have not learned that you can find deodorant at grocery stores. Oh well.

Croatia is definitely in one of my top five places that I have visited, and I would love to come back and explore more of it some day. I really like that it is not touristy (no McDonalds) and yet is easy for travelers.

I am going on a school trip this weekend but I will try to update on that immediately when I get back so that I can tell about my life in Florence- one month until I return to the US! Hope everyone is recovering well from the tornadoes.

Almafi Coast

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Lots of pictures!

This past weekend I went with a company to the Almafi coast with my roommate. This was my last weekend trip, so it was bitter-sweet. Since I have been busy with writing papers and trying to figure out my summer schedule this past week, I had little time to actually focus on or even get excited about my trip to one of the most beautiful places in the world. I packed for the trip about an hour in advance, and it was supposed to rain but we were at the beach so in order to be prepared, I packed a little bit of everything that I owned.

On Thursday after signing up for classes in the fall, my roommate and I left the apartment to get on the bus that would transport us and 50 or so other students to Almafi Coast. Our bus had the lucky honor of picking up a couple of students in Rome that were originally studying abroad in Barcelona (they flew to catch the bus) so we did not arrive at our hostel until after 3. I think it is interesting to see the type of people that study abroad in each city. The majority of the students on my bus were studying in Florence, and all but one was female while all of the students studying in Barcelona were male and, as our tour guide put it, “a different breed of students from Barcelona”

I did not know exactly what city the hostel was in until the next morning: Sorrento! The hostel had a large lounge area that resembled a hotel and a terrace on the roof overlooking the city and the sea/mountains. My room was a 12 bed not-very-private room right above where the band played at night. This might not have been a bad thing, but the music was very loud and they were playing American songs even though the singers were Italian and could not speak English.

After going to bed a little before 4, we woke up at 6:30 to catch the ferry over to Capri. The remainder of this day is pretty hazy…partly because lack of sleep and partly because the day was unfortunately cold and rainy. I was prepared for the rain, but some of the others did not plan ahead as well and were freezing in beach clothes. We walked from the top of the cliff down a windy road to the port where we caught a large ferry that took our entire group (about 200) over to Capri. The Almafi coast is very different from other bodies of water in that the land does not gradually fall into the water but rather cliffs into the sea with a steep drop- perfect for cliff jumping. Once we got to Capri, we immediately went on another smaller boat holding only 80 of us that was to give us a tour of the island. The first stop on the tour: the Blue Grotto. This is one of the wonders of the world, though from the outside it looks merely like a hole in the cliff. In fact, the hole is so small that only four people (plus the rower) can fit inside each of the boats. Whenever the boats go into the Blue Grotto, everyone must duck because otherwise we would hit our heads. The water became very rough at points, and we had to wait for it to calm down a bit to enter. Since there was so many of us wanting to go into the Blue Grotto, larger boats pulled up towing four or more row boats attached in a chain so that we could all enter in a reasonable amount of time. The rower of the boat told us to get all the way down into the row boat so that we could fit in the hole, and when we came out the other side, it was spectacular. I have never seen anything like the Blue Grotto. The sunlight reflects on the sand so that it appears that the water is glowing a bright, brilliant blue. This cave goes back to the Romans, so it has been known for a very long time. We were not allowed to go swimming in it, and even if we were the water was way too cold to enter. I really enjoyed the Blue Grotto because it was incredibly spectacular- definitely worth the 7.5 Euro I spent to enter. The next stop on the boat tour was to a small cave where much of the coral used to make jewelry is found. The coast of the island that we were wrapping around was littered with occasional forts and lighthouses on the edges, but the forts looked more inviting to enemies rather than intimidating because at least in these places the rock was not straight up. The boat was was very windy, and very cold, so we spent the ride back huddled in a poor attempt to remain warm.

Once we returned to the port in Capri, we trekked up the island to get to a halfway point where we could shop and see a garden before going even farther up the mountain. One of the tour guides said that going from the port to the new area was a “little more than a walk”… he was wrong. This was a hike…a hardcore, strenuous, zero-guilt-after-gelato type of hike.  Unlike in the US, the stairs in Capri are not uniform so we could not even look at the beautiful houses with lemon trees growing in fear that we would trip. The only positive with this “little more than a walk” was that I was not cold anymore. The town that we visited was nice, though the gardens that we saw should really be called an overlook because that was the only purpose of visiting them. Throughout Capri, there are lots of lemon trees with lemons the size of melons and there are lots of purple wisteria covering the wooden panels that run perpendicular to the walkways. We took a bus up to Anacapri where we ate lunch at a spectacular restaurant and watched one of the cooks make our pizzas. After lunch, we visited a lemoncello tasting that also had lemon creme and melon cream types of limoncello- which were all amazing. In the store next door was a man making sandals, so of course every girl in the group got leather sandals custom and handmade. Since we still had three hours left on the island, my roommate and I decided to take a chairlift up to the very top of the island. Unlike the chairlifts that I have been on, these chairs were single chairs. Of course, it started to rain while I was on the chairlift so I was traveling on the chairlift with my umbrella out. The chairlift gave us a lovely birds-eye view of the white houses shoved into the island and once we got to the top, another spectacular view of the deep blue sea. All of the signs on the island were made of painted ceramic, including street signs.

The company (bus2alps) took us to the top of the mountain, but told us that we needed to find our own way down. How kind. We took the city bus which we expected to take us all the way to the bottom but instead took us to the “little more than a walk” place, so we were able to walk back down. Trouble is, we were too busy paying attention to not falling that we did not know where we had turned, so we ended up in the wrong place and had to retrace our steps until we finally got to the grande marina. On the boat ride back to Sorrento, sleep finally overpowered most of us during the 30 minute boat ride. One of the girls I was with accidentally left her purse on the boat that contained everything (cash, cards, passport) that she needed, and it has not been seen since. When we got back to the hostel, all 12 of the other girls in my room decided to take a nap before dinner. Dinner consisted of an all-you-can-eat-pasta which was too good to be true as I’ve had better pasta in the US (no offense). Overall, Capri was gorgeous even though it was cloudy, rainy, and cold. I did get a souvenir sweatshirt though!

The next morning we did not have to wake up so early because we were going to Positano. The weather seemed to want to make up for the previous day, and it was perfect. Positano is a city that seems like it was built into the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain is a sand beach (first one I’ve seen in a while!) where people can lay out and swim. On our way down the mountain there was a dog that wanted to walk itself (photo attached). This was a pleasant, relaxing day. However, the boat company did not think the same and decided that the water was too rough for us to go cliff jumping. Apparently it is dangerous because people can jump in and get smashed by a wave into the cliff. The water in Positano was (once again) perfectly and amazingly blue, and this was enhanced by the sunny day. I’m having a lot of trouble trying to figure out which pictures to add to the blog because they are all stunning. We were the only people on the beach, and in fact the only people wearing less than a jacket and jeans in all of Positano. Italians do not like to go to the beach until after May.

The two buses back to Sorrento were both crowded but fairly easy to navigate. At the hostel, we took a nap (all Italians do this and American students studying here have decided that this is the custom we are most open to adopting) and watched the sunset from the top of the hostel. Rather than have another night of the mediocre all-you-can-eat-pasta-buffet, we went to a family restaurant that overlooked the water. This restaurant had a fun atmosphere because all of the clients seemed to know each other and all of the kids were playing with one another. The food was delicious- I have never had chicken cooked so tender. The bread in Tuscany has no salt, so it was refreshing to finally get salted bread.

The next day we headed out early- around 8- to go to Pompei. I have watched documentaries and read some about the destruction of this city, but the first thing that always comes to mind when I hear Pompei is the amusement park ride at Busch Gardens. However, this ride is nothing like the city today. The city itself is fairly well preserved because it has been covered by layers of dirt for 3/4 of the time since the initial destruction due to Mt. Vesuvius. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and had an amazing sense of style. Pompei had an open sewage system, so the unwanted liquids ran in the street and the sidewalks were raised on either side. There are two things that stood out to me about Pompei: 1. The brothel (and all of the signs that the city had leading to it) and 2. The bodies that were plastered in the form that they died… Mt. Vesuvius 7 kilometers from the city, and it demolished the poor place. Pompei was recovering from a terrible earthquake that had hit no more than 10 years previous when the volcano erupted. The tour guide showed us where bakeries, houses, rich houses, public baths, and other city buildings were before the volcano destroyed everything. Pompei is a huge city that even now is not fully excavated. I wish we could have spent more time there.

The lunch that we had after Pompei was an absolute disaster. The pizza took forever to come out, and when it finally did I realized that I had ordered the Neapolitan pizza that does not have cheese- so basically it was sauce on bread. Then the waiter decided to give us water (unprecedented for Italy- especially when we did not ask for it), but the table was too wobbly and while we were cutting our pizzas the water splattered into my roommate’s pizza. The old man at the table next to us spilled his entire coffee in his lap, the kid behind us was rocking his chair and fell backwards (good thing the waiter was there to lessen his fall), and the sign just outside where we were sitting fell and slammed into the building. At least we got free limoncello after the meal.We headed back to Florence after eating our poor excuse for a lunch. It was nice to be heading back, but also sad because this meant that I only have one more big trip (Easter) before my term ends. The Almafi coast has the most beautiful water I have ever seen, though the beaches in the US are much nicer- I miss sand! The beach in Positano switched between large pebbles and sand to the point where you needed water shoes.

I will try to update about this week sometime before I leave for my Easter break trip on Thursday. Hope everything is going well and I love hearing from you all!

Last Part of Spring Break

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(finally!)

Starting from where I left off… we landed in the London Stansted airport and took the train into the city. On the train, I met a great British medical student attending Cambridge, and he was nice enough to take us to our hostel. We arrived after midnight so the Tube was not running. Therefore, we took the night bus around the city to our hostel, and we would have had no idea how the bus works/which bus to get on, but he was very helpful. We checked into our hostel and crashed immediately. This hostel was much better than our original London hostel because the rooms were bigger and the bathroom was not on the end of the hallway.

In the morning we woke up, got breakfast at the hostel (which, once again, was only jam and toast) and left to adventure in London for another superbly beautiful day with clear skies and light jacket weather. We went to Camden market, which is an outdoor market that sells clothes. The clothes were nothing special, so we went to the nearby Stables market- and this is the place to go! The stores had neat homemade crafts/goods from necklaces to hand-painted t-shirts, scarves (I got one to replace the one I lost) and embroidered notebooks. Stables is an underground market that I think originally housed horses, hence the name. After Stables, we went to Regents Park and it was amazing just how perfect the weather was. The fields were wide open and the park runs right next to the zoo, so I got to see camels. In the fields there were school children playing, young people playing soccer, old couples lounging around the park, and dogs running to their heart’s content. The trees had not yet budded, but I could see the stumps and clumps of green where, given two weeks, leaves were going to sprout. The lake was really pretty too- and by lake I mean pond. We saw the Queen’s Gardens that had ornately laid out flowers, and then speed-walked back to the hostel to retrieve our belongings and head to the airport.

The journey from Camden to the airport (new airport this time) requires the tube and then a train. We got directions from the assistance desk and the first leg of our journey (the Tube) ran smoothly. However, the train was delayed because of an earlier shut down, so we had to take 2 trains to get to the airport. A nice British man who was also trying to catch a flight helped us decide which trains to take so we could most efficiently and quickly arrive at the airport. He told us that delays are disgustingly common for London. They should probably figure out how to fix this before the Olympics start next summer! One of these trains was also delayed so instead of arriving an hour earlier than they recommend (we had planned to arrive two hours early) we were once again sprinting through the airport- though thankfully no hold up in security. Of course, our gate was the farthest at a 20 minute walk (though the flat escalators are very helpful and shortened this time to 5 minutes).  Running through airports is extremely overrated. We arrived just as they were boarding, and I spent my last two pounds on tea. I got a nice window seat, but the plane was cramped and we ended up sitting by a group of guys drinking for a bachelor party…the cabin crew was not happy about them. In front of us sat a nice man from Britain who had visited Prague multiple times and he helped us get to our hostel. We’ve had lots of people help us get to where we wanted to go on this trip…I guess helping two American girls is less intimidating then trying to help six or seven of us. We’ve gotten so fortunate with amazingly friendly people, I’m very thankful. This was even nicer because the language in Prague is extremely different from any place I have visited. This hostel was the best one so far on this trip. The hostel doubled as a hotel with a huge lounge area, downstairs bar, small restaurant, and very clean. The hotel part was upstairs while the 16-bed hostel room was in the basement. Yes, this is a lot of people. However, we had curtains and very comfortable beds so it seemed more private than it sounds. The only downside was that someone took my bed so while everyone was sleeping I had to try and figure out the one other bed that was supposed to be empty for me. It all worked out though.

The next morning we woke up and left for the free walking tour of Prague. Once again, the free walking tour was great and the guide explained much about the city. Highlights (and warning, choppy paragraph): he did a hilarious imitation of the clock-tower of what it does at the hour. At every hour, this clock tower chimes and some of the figures pop in and out of their holes- and yet about 300 or so people come and video tape it every single hour. The history of the politics of Prague is very interesting and unlike most of the other cities I have visited. Basically, they were under a communist regime with only brief glimpses of freedom…until 1989. Some men burned themselves alive to try and spark a revolution, though this had little effect. Most of this history is in living memory too, with some people having memories of 8 different governments. There is a metronome clock that represents the slowness of time during the communist era. There was a statue commemorating Kafka and Mozart (though I think that he merely liked Prague and did not have any birth/death connection with the city). I saw the place where Tycho Brahe was buried! I have heard the story of Tycho Brahe and his golden nose and death many times, so it was very interesting to see a place where he existed. Tycho Brahe was an astronomer whose data was ‘used’ (I put used in quotes because he was allegedly murdered by one of his assistants Kepler for his data) for formulating Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. When the tour guide was explaining the influence of Kepler and Brahe, this is when I most missed the science/physics people that I am surrounded by in my major at UNC because none of the people in the tour group truly appreciated the impact of their work. I also saw the place where the velvet revolution and revolts of the keys (of freedom) occurred. The Jewish ghetto had a large impact on me; it’s one of those things that you read about but cannot completely understand until you actually see it. The graveyard has 13-people deep graves. There is a house in the Jewish quarter that has over 250,000 paintings from children that were painted as a type of therapy for the children during the Nazi regime…and these are the only proof that some of these people ever existed. I don’t know if it was because the lack of sleep or the sun shining straight at me, but I teared up listening to this while the guide was explaining this, and I finally realized why America is truly great holds such a strong place as it does today- we represent the image of freedom and human rights are a right- not a gift, and that these equalities and rights of justice are worth dying for. The people in Prague were only recently granted this…A simple freedom to take a trip outside of the city was banned by the government. One of the girls I was talking to on the tour was from a country (I regret to say that I do not remember the name but it might have been Russia) where her grandmother had a passport but her grandfather was not allowed to get one and thus could not travel.

After the free walking tour of the city, we decided to take a tour of the castle. I went to the castle and met an Australian and an American who had lived in Australia for a couple of months. Both were traveling by themselves and it has inspired me to travel by myself, though this will not happen because I only have a little over a month left abroad…!!! The Prague Castle was nice, but nothing special because it was more like a mini-city surrounded by walls on a hill. The cathedral in the castle was beautiful with elaborate stained glass windows but nothing with a wow factor.

After the castle walking tour we walked up to the metronome statue trying to find the place where you can text and it shows up on a large screen, but we could not find it. This metronome was on the very top of a hill and although we did not find the text machine, we did see a spectacular view of the sunset along the river. After viewing the metronome, we walked around the city for a bit, ate a Prague sausage (delicious!) and shopped for a little bit though with little enthusiasm. Fun irony: the building for the communist museum is shoved between a McDonald’s and a casino- two of the biggest icons of capitalism. When we returned to the hostel, we ate dinner at the restaurant and watched the UNC basketball game as they killed the team that they were playing. All of the students from UNC, myself included, were very nervous about UNC doing so well in the tournament because we were afraid that they were going to win the whole thing and we would not be in Chapel Hill to see it. Some of us even considered flying home for the weekend of the championship.

My view on Prague after the first day: awesome, and basically a European version of the US since the cars are the same, the stores are similar, the streets are paved with asphalt (unlike many Italian cities), and the people seem to be relaxed (not too into fashion as in Italy). Prague has such an in-depth history with lots of character, and most of it is in living memories. The streets are very clean, and the people smoke much less. I can’t wait to return to the US where smoking is not common.

The next day we woke up early to go to Kutna Hora- a city outside of Prague that has an infamous bone chapel. We originally were going to try and go on our own, but our late start combined with our ticket and not knowing exactly where the station was convinced us that we needed to be with other English speaking individuals led by a nice tour guide even though it would cost money. Oh yes, we got in trouble with the Czech police. We were walking to the train station and crossed the street where there was not a crosswalk. We have done this multiple times in multiple different cities and when we did it in Prague were multiple people lingering and also j-walking. But of course, they picked the poor American girls to ticket. Two police officers (at least they were uniformed and had guns) approached us and asked for our passport- which we do not carry with us because we have heard too many horror stories of people getting pickpocketed- though they continued to ask for it even when we said that we did not have it. They did not speak any English, and we did not speak any Czech. Their English consisted of numbers and the word “passport.” Instead, we gave them our drivers licenses and they took our information. Here is the fishy part…they told us it would be 2000 CZK (about 200 American Dollars) but when we told them that we only had 200, they took that and pocketed it. I have since lost the ticket, but the whole ordeal was sketchy and made me really nervous- definitely hurting my image of Prague. In fact, many of my friends have said that Prague was one of their favorite cities that they have visited, while to me Prague was my least favorite. Later people that we talked to said that the police are corrupt. 100 CZK each is not that much (about 5 Euro, so maybe 10 Dollars?) but it was still rough because that was my lunch money. I guess police forces everywhere have their bad apples…but at least they’ll have a good night with the beer money we just gave them. Apparently we were supposed to cross by going on the sidewalk running parallel to us and going underneath and through the metro station.

Anyways, this put a damper on our trip. Because it was cold and rainy and we did not feel like running to the station, we decided to just do the tour. We went shopping for a bit and met up at Starbucks to meet the tour guide. There was only six people in our group, but the tour guide was not very enthusiastic and the longer we were with him the more his strangeness started coming out. He lived in a flat with no fridge, stove, microwave, or real bed frame. The four other people we were with were pairs of couples, one from the US and the other from Australia. It was nice to be around older, calmer people and it made the trip seem like a family vacation rather than a spring break trip. The train to the town (Kutna Hora) was about an hour long, so we spent the train ride doing riddles and playing word games. The town of Kutna Hora was much more relaxed and quaint than Prague. It was somewhat run down in some areas, but in others reminded me of the US. We walked a short ways to the bone chapel which was…interesting. The entire place inside has decorations and caves made solely of human bones. It was built because the graveyard was too full. They had huge, elaborate chandeliers and a coat of arms made of bones. Taking anatomy was helpful because I recognized them all. After the bone chapel we took a bus over to a Gothic style church, which was a nice change from the Renaissance style in Florence. When we were finished looking around the church, we went to an authentic Czech restaurant where I had a traditional meal of pork and bread with cranberry and mushroom sauce- so good! I miss sauces…they don’t have sauces that thick in Italy as they prefer the true taste of the food. After lunch the tour was finished, so we walked to the train station and returned to Prague. When we got back to the hostel we packed and showered because the next morning we were leaving the hostel at 7 but it was daylight savings so it would seem even earlier.

Even though our flight was not until 10 and the airport was only 30 minutes away, we wanted to split a shuttle between six of us and their flight was at 8:30. We were also determined to not run through an airport. The problem with daylight savings is that neither of the alarms on our iPhones went off, so our lacking-technology phones that were issued by the school finally came to use because they did not have daylight savings so they did not recognize the change in time, and they woke us up. At the airport I spent my remaining 89 CZK on a meal at McDonald’s- and I have never appreciated McDonald’s as much as I did then. Check in and security were simple except that they patted me down (third time now) even though I did not beep. We waited in the airport for a while (much better than running) and I got upgraded to an extra-large seat on the plane because I am American! Well, not because I’m American but because I speak English; they needed someone who could speak English in the emergency exit row.

At this point in my trip, I realized that I am halfway done with my study abroad program. Being on the other side of spring break made the end of the program seem so much closer and I don’t want to leave because I have so much to explore. My spring break trip was absolutely amazing. I am so glad that I decided to go to only go to three cities rather than the original six. It was very relaxing to stay in the same place at night and the roughest parts of my journey was getting to and from airports. Even now, almost a month later, I get a thrill thinking of how great London was. The people that I met in every city were great; London was so friendly, Dublin people were hilarious, and Prague people (besides the cops) were fine. I did not interact with as many Czech people because I do not speak their language. There are only two words that I managed to learn which I will teach phonetically: “ahoy” for hey, an informal greeting, and “deecooee” which means thank you. Out of all of the cities, I enjoyed London the most, and I’m sure the weather was a huge factor in this. It was nice to be around English speaking people. When I returned to Florence, my Italian was rough. My conversation partner was surprised to see how much I had lost in two weeks…so to make up for it I have been trying to watch television. They have been showing Formula 1 racing a lot recently.

Done with spring break updates! *sigh* Next: my trip to Almafi coast. I finished 3/4 of my papers and the last one is not due for a couple of weeks so this week will be great to explore Florence. The semester ends in less than a month and I go to the US (I think) in 40 days…!

Hope everything in the US is going well! I hope that everyone hit by the storms in Raleigh is ok…

Dublina!

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Continuing with spring break where I left off on the train to the airport to go to Dublin…

(Refresher) We woke up early and grabbed our backs, stuffed the remains of our stuff into the little space we had, and checked out of the hostel. We were ready at 5:30 and our boarding was at 8:10 so we figured we were giving ourselves plenty of time as it only takes an hour to get to the airport. We left to catch the Tube to Liverpool where we would switch to the train that would take us to Standsted airport. However, when we got to the train area the machine would not take the credit card, so I had to wait while my friend got out cash (I still had enough remaining pounds). It’s a good thing that we did not dilly-dally anywhere because the train left two minutes after we got on (though we had no idea what the schedule for the trains were…and neither did the information desk when we asked them the day before…) Once we got to the airport, I went to the bathroom to add a couple more layers and stuff the second bag into the first bag (I mentioned before that Ryanair is a cheap airline) but I accidentally left my scarf in the bathroom. It was only 5 Euro, but it was my only scarf on the trip, and my neck was uncomfortably cold the remainder of the trip. However, now I had a legitimate excuse to go shopping. We checked into Ryanair where they stamped our tickets and then went through security- which was the longest line I have yet encountered while studying abroad. At this point, we were both very nervous/uncomfortable because of the time, and the four hours sleep combined with the 3 AM wake up was not helping matters. Security was an absolute nightmare. Never travel through Stansted. London has five airports, I’m sure that you can find a way to avoid it. I thought my stuff had all passed fine, until a devoted worker pulled my bag of liquids and decided to check it. I had a Clinique bonus bag for my liquids and not a clear plastic bag, and apparently the worker thought that the X-ray machine was incapable of accurately screening a colored bag, and dumped out all of my liquids into a tray. He told me to put all of my liquids into a bag, where I angrily proceeded to think “you just dumped it out of one!!!” (I did not say this.) I said that I do not have one, the other bag has worked completely fine up until now. He said that I could put them all in a plastic bag that could be found on the other side of security aka I would have to go through the long line of security again, or I could just leave my stuff. Not happy. Thank goodness my friend had a bag that I could put all of my stuff in. However, she was having security troubles of her own. Security had taken her bag because they saw empty containers that generally have liquid in them but she had not filled them yet. They had taken literally everything out of her bag to look for the containers (they had seen the containers in the X-ray) and she was scrambling to put everything bag into her bag. While we were throwing everything back into her bag, security was testing all of my liquids even though I now had a clear plastic bag. As we were packing our bags, another man from security had come up and was looking at the two of us as if we were a particularly sticky piece of gum on his shoe. I can see why criminals who are previously marked as criminals and thus prejudiced against continue to act out because it’s easy to simply be defensive and have a “me against the world” mindset when security already counts you as inferior.

Once we got all of our stuff together and realizing that it was 8:10, we sprinted through the airport for a good five minutes…with all of our stuff…wearing my extra layers…every muscle in my body was crying out and trying to tense up but we had to continue so that we could catch our flight. We were “those Americans.” We began our handicapped sprint at security and of course our gate was on the other side of the airport. As we turned the corner to leave security, I saw a sign that said “12 minutes to these gates”- and of course ours was on there. Not very encouraging. When we got to the gate, it turns out that our efforts were for nothing as they had not even started boarding. Extremely unhappy, hot, sweaty, but relieved that we had not missed our flight, we sat down in line. After another ten minutes (when all of the people we had sprinted past were just starting to appear in line) they started boarding. Apparently my book-bag is too big for Ryanair. Too fat. It would not fit into the bin because it was too fat. Even with all of my reordering, re-shoving, and attempt to simply sneak past the woman and pretend not to understand English, we decided that we would have to check a bag. I ended up paying 35 Pounds for a book-bag that held maybe 7 pounds of weight. This was more than the set of flights combined…But we were on the plane. Long story short, my view towards the British at this point had done a 180 and it was definitely a good thing that we were returning in a couple of days to rectify these negative feelings.

The flight itself was fine, Ryanair played their trumpet song when we landed which I realize now was because they had another on-time flight. And (more importantly) our bags made it. We took the bus to the Dublin station and walked a short ways to our hostel. Dublin was such a nice change from the hustle and bustle of London, but the city seemed somewhat dead in some areas. Our hostel was only four bridges away from the bus station, and it was much better than the hostel in London. We were greeted by two Irish guys who were hilariously sarcastic. Our room was a 12 person female-only dorm style room, though it had much more space and better lighting than the hostel in London. Additionally, this hostel had a great view overlooking the river. The hostel has 4 floors (and of course we were at the top…and this is Europe where they start their floors with 0 so it was five American floors) and a kitchen, lounge, computers, and an overall nice vibe for both older couples and young people.

We took a much-needed nap and then went on the free walking tour given by a group associated with our hostel. The walking tour was nice, the guy gave a nice history of Dublin/Ireland but it’s hard to condense a couple thousand years into an hour. Ireland has an even more extensive history than Florence- it starts in the 1000 BC! Some of the buildings he pointed out that I thought were interesting:

1. A cathedral that is known for a guy who was cleaning and he found a petrified cat chasing a mouse stuck in the organ pipes…now the church is known as Tom and Jerry.

2. The Trinity College was a nice/nostalgic reminder of UNC and college campuses back home. George Lucas visited the library in this college and asked the school if he could shoot one of his Star Wars films there, but the college declined. However, due to the superb technology that he has access to, he was able to use computer technology to rebuild the library. The school saw that the movie was a huge success and asked for money, but George Lucas won the case.

3. A public building that was built on a Viking plantation even though the population protested.

4. The building where U2 had its start aka found its manager.

5. A tower that a prisoner escaped from by digging.

6. A helicopter pad where dignitaries land when they stay in Dublin (Queen, President, etc.) On the other side of this helicopter pad is a wall that was put there so that when important people came to visit Dublin, they would not see the ghetto of Dublin. Rather than clean up the slums, Dublin decided to put a wall to block any view.

7. A statue that commemorates the hard times of Dublin: famine and the revolution of Britain.

To sum up Ireland history in the views of the guide, they have been oppressed by the British and do not like it. After our walking tour, we ended up at a restaurant and got some amazing Irish food! My beef stew was really good- and not only because I had just been in London. We ate with three girls from Britain, and it was fun comparing cultures and sharing American ways. For example, they go straight into their law/medical degree instead of doing straight undergraduate and then law/medical school. After eating, we went shopping a bit where we both got a duffle bags in which I used as a check-in bag for the remainder of the trip- I learned my lesson and I was not going to worry anymore.

After shopping we returned to the hostel to relax and chat with other people in the hostel. One of my favorite parts about traveling is meeting people. One of my roommates at the hostel was traveling all through Europe and did not have a home; she had all of her stuff at the hostel. Another girl was a student from Idaho but she was studying abroad in Florence and was on her spring break and traveling all by herself (side note: my friend that I was traveling with saw her in Florence yesterday!). Also, (another small world moment) she was roommates in Florence with the girls that I had roomed in Interlaken (Switzerland) with two weeks ago! We ended up hanging out that night with other people from Australia, Canada, England, Czech Republic, and other random places around the world.

The next morning we woke up around 8, got packed, and got on the computer to sign in to check a bag for the remainder of our flights. When we had all of our transportation figured out, we headed off for a tour of the Guinness brewery. We got lost trying to find the entrance but got a 360 degree tour of the outside of the factory (we went around the wrong way initially) and we eventually found the entrance in a rather run-down alleyway that reminded me of the road by the Durham Bulls baseball stadium looked like before it was renovated a couple years ago. The self-guided tour was interesting but focused more on the history of Guinness and not how the make it. It was still interesting to compare how it was made then compared to now, and Guinness signed a 9000 year contract to ensure that he would receive the good mountain water…I guess he was really confident that Guinness would work. Included in our ticket price was session on how to pour a glass of Guinness- which is hold it at a 45 degree angle and slowly straighten the glass as the liquid pours in and stop once it gets to the middle of the harp on the glass, let sit, then top it off. We walked around the city for a little bit admiring the river and the St Patrick’s Day decorations still up, we returned to the hostel, obtained our luggage, and headed off to the airport to catch our flight to London.

Since the idea of running through another airport was not appealing, we arrived at the airport early. Too early apparently because the gate would not check us in and told us to wait thirty minutes. In this airport, I saw many people with bags twice the size of mine able to get on the plane…I do not like the inconsistencies of airports.

Irish people are great; friendly, fun, witty, sarcastic, and awesome people. The city is home-y to me because it is rather relaxed and not showy like London. The buildings vary immensely… In Florence architecture is stuck in the middle ages/Renaissance, London has the new, glamorous look, while Dublin has a mix of both. In fact, Dublin seems to just build the new buildings right next to the old so it is a good juxtaposition. The people that I’ve talked to say that we needed to spend more time there, and I wish that we did. The most significant aspect that I noticed about Dublin is that there is a pub on literally every single street corner…this culture is all about their beer. There were also signs to a Leprechaun museum that no one I know could find…

At this point in the trip, we were holding up pretty well; no injuries, eating relatively healthy, and getting enough sleep. These simple things are a huge factor when it comes to traveling. We were only halfway through, and it was the longest time that I had been away from Florence. However, I was not missing Florence too much because the weather we had been having in Florence was cold in rainy, while the weather on spring break was cloudless and perfect.

More about the last day in London and Prague tomorrow!