you sound like you're from LONDON!

Buckingham Palace

Thursday, March 3rd, I left the Global Campus after destroying my last two finals - that’s right, your girl killed ‘em out there – and then rushed home to start packing for the epic spring break adventure that was to start in just a few hours.   In case you’re wondering parents, this late stage packing would later come back to haunt me, as I forgot my suspenders, a belt, and pajama pants.  Anyhow, after packing I had just enough time to shower before a week of limited showers – hostels are not my favorite place to shower plus I’m not sure how clean you can really get in a dirty bathroom?  At 4:15, I headed to Piazza San Marco to grab a cab to the airport where I then sat for an extra hour and half past boarding time upon being told that a strike in Bologna was delaying the flight crew from arriving.  No skin off my back, I had my iPod and a good book and it was spring break…why worry?

Westminster Abbey

The flight flew by (literally) and in no time I had arrived at Gatwick airport in London.  Actually I’m not quite sure you can call it a London airport since it was a decently long train ride away.  The tube, as the Brits call it, was a bit confusing at first.  Lines of different colors cris-crossed all over the map making what looked to me a color-by-numbers page out of a children’s book.  To my utter pleasure, London is located in England, which happens to be an English speaking country (SCORE!) so I could ask for directions to my hostel in English and get a response that I could actually understand.  With directions and a map in hand, I made my way to the hostel to wait for Nell and Teague to get there.

About two hours later, the handle of our room turned and the two faces of my roommates peered around the door; I quickly woke up from my doze.  Spring break had officially started at this very moment!  Nell, Teague, and I sat for a minute grasping the reality that the three of us had made it to London alive and had nine more days of sheer bliss to come then headed downstairs to get a plate of nachos and plan out our first day in London.

[Bossy] Ben

Bright and early, we woke up and headed to the grocery store to grab some groceries for the next couple of days’ breakfasts.  English muffins (so fitting, I know), peanut butter, apples, yogurt, milk, and granola make for a lovely start to the day.  And so it was!  We even got to stop at a Starbucks for a LARGE cup of coffee, something we are rather deprived of here in Florence.  This Starbucks even uses only fairtrade coffee so this gurl go tot have her coffee and drink it too! Then we hopped on the tube to Green Park, and oh how green it was my friends.  The park was flooding with grass, flowers, trees, people jogging – basically most things Florence lacks – so the rush of happiness I felt at seeing these things was overwhelming.  Across the park was the Buckingham Palace, where we had tea with the Queen.  She’s quite a lady I admit, and her tearoom is splendidly decorated.  Okay I didn’t have tea with her, but she did say she’d call me the next time she was free.

Ya ya, lady. Join the club.

After Buckingham Palace, I navigated us over to the Westminster Abbey.  On the way we passed by Big Ben, the red telephone booths London is so famous for, and tons of little English kids who sounded more polite than anybody I’ve ever met in the states merely because they have English accents.   After seeing numerous churches and cathedrals throughout Italy, I thought I was churched out.  Westminster Abbey proved me wrong.   This church was a treasure chest of stained glass, tombs, coats of armor, history, and possibly the most breath-taking ceiling I have ever set eyes on.  Ironically, it turns out that Charles Darwin is buried here.  Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure being buried in an institution that was responsible for repressing your life’s work is a bit twisted.

Our next move was over the Tate Modern to indulge in a bit of confusion that is modern art.  This museum is amazing.  As subjective as modern art is, I feel extremely confident in that statement.  My favorite section was titled “Poetry and Dream” which had an enormous collection of surrealist art. I got so lost in the art that even my phone lost service and I almost made everybody late for our tour of the Globe Theater.  The Globe Theater was pretty interesting to see because it was a replica of the same that Shakespeare used for his performances but I wouldn’t necessarily mark it as a must see while in London.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Following the Globe Theater, Nell, Teague, and I went off to meet up with Emily, a friend of Nell and Teague.  We met up at a pub, where I had a pint of bitters (yummm) and a pie sampler (pies included: Sheperd’s Pie, Chicken and Mushroom Pie, Steak and Ale Pie, and Steak and Kidney Pie).  With full stomachs, we headed over to see a film called Archipelago.  The whole movie-going thing is very different in London than we’re used to back home.  The theater was extremely posh.  People came dressed up and the movies had extensive info pages in the lobby describing how the movie was directed, emphasizing lighting, back-stories to the plot, and even small details like background sounds - much different from the grab a large popcorn and coke and woof it all down while watching an action movie back in the states.

Me and Nell at the pub with our pints of bitter ;)

Monkeyin' around at the zoo

The next day brought us to the London Zoo.  Now, I must say that I absolutely detest zoos and it pained me a bit to contribute money to such an idea.  The experience at this zoo only solidified by feelings.  Upon entering the Gorilla Kingdom, I met a gorilla who sat in the hay with his hand resting on his chin bobbing back and forth with a dull gaze in his eyes.  This gorilla was not a happy gorilla and I’m most certain that he would have been doing something very different had he been in the wild.  Along with that, it seemed every animal in the zoo was hiding from the cold air of London or perhaps they had gotten tired of humans sitting and pointing at them all day long.  I can’t say I blame them.  We quickly left in disappointment and went off to Camden Market.

the fam

Now, this place is where it’s at.  Camden Market is an enormous hippie, alternative market made up of all sorts of different shops (more like holes in the wall with merchandise overflowing out to the sidewalks).  You can, and we did, get lost in the aisles and caverns of this market.  If I had brought another duffle with me, I would’ve bought up the whole place.  The stuff here is awesome and with one visit you can leave with everything you ever need for an entire lifetime or two.  Not to mention, here there are food stands that have the most delicious foods you can ever want.  Noodles, Thai food, Chinese food, brazilian food, Italian food.  All cheap.  All good.  You name it, they got it.  My heaven.

If you think you're drooling, you should see my keyboard right now...

From Camden Market we headed to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a quick pop in and a bit of coffee at our missed favorite, Starbucks.  And then all hell broke loose.  We checked out of our hostel and headed over to King’s Cross Station where our next hotel accommodation was supposed to be.  Ladies and gents, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, ever stay at Melville Hotel or any of their sibling hotels.  Nell and Teague walked into the hotel to give the name for our reservations while I waited outside since we only booked for two people and had planned on sneaking the third in.  I soon saw Nell and Teague walk out of the hotel with a man as they beckoned me to come with them.  Apparently the hotel had overbooked – how they got enough people to stay in their dump is beside me – and we were now walking to the other hotels to see if they could fit us in.  Luckily, Teague’s wits convinced the frazzled bellboy (if you can even call him that) that our reservation was for three, so I suppose there’s a silver lining to this disgustingly dirty cloud.  Eventually we found a place called King’s Hotel.  Let’s just say no king would ever stay here.  Ever.  Thankfully, I had brought my antibacterial sleep sac with me which served as a clean cocoon of safety in this brothel-like hotel.

Like a knight in shining armor, Tom Simoncic saved us from our frazzled state and met us for dinner.  After spending two months living with Teague, I couldn't wait to meet half of the party who raised her.  As expected, I was not disappointed. To give you an idea of what he looks like, picture Andy from the Office, only taller and more grown up.  Tom met us in Soho and led us to Masala for some well needed Indian food.  We sat an talked about our time so far in Florence, about London, about Teague, ourselves, and everything you could imagine.  I'm not sure what it was, but having a person that one of us knew around was extremely comforting.  It felt almost like having you're favorite sweater around you when you really need it - if the description is any indication, it's a weird feeling to describe, but it felt great.  A quick visit to the pub followed where the four of us got on chatting and drinking and just hanging out.  After the stress of the hotel situation, Tom had somehow managed to make everything better just by being there; his light-hearted character and sense of humor just seemed to erase the reality of King's Hotel.

Unfortunately, the night grew old and we had to head back to our, "hotel," if you will.  I immediately crawled into bed to spend as little conscious time as possible in the room.

St. Paul's Cathedral

We woke up early, practically leaping out of bed to head for the Euston Train Station.  And so begins the next leg of our journey to Dublin…

the tube

Mah gurl Teague!

AmsterDAYUM!

People live in that boat, true story.

Friday morning I awoke at the early hours of 4:30 to get myself ready for a trip to Amsterdam. I wouldn’t say I as much woke up as I popped out of bed in eager excitement for the weekend to come.  The airport was empty when I arrived and strolled through the security check.  Of course I forgot to empty out my re-useable water bottle and instead of being able to pour it out, I was forced to chug the water.  It was totally full but college has done me good and I powered through it, the last drip went down my throat and I was off to the gate. 

I've been working on manual settings on my camera and I'm gettin' pretty good!

After a layover in Munich, my plane set off for Amsterdam.  I tried to sleep as I did on the flight to Munich but my excitement was far to great to allow me that pleasure.  Instead, I chose to read a few short stories from the book, “The Elephant Vanishes,” until we landed.  When the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker announcing our landing, the anticipation on the plane was so great, I swear I felt a pressure change that could have ruptured the entire passenger cabin.  The second our plane landed and came to a slow taxi I heard the unclicking of seatbelts and people immediately began retrieving their bags from the overhead compartment.  This is before the seatbelt light even went off, people.  I had never seen anything quite like it in my life, but the feeling was contagious! All of a sudden, I started getting jittery with excitement and continuously asked myself when I would get off of the airplane! No matter how quick it took, it was not quick enough, that I know. 

But the benches and the brick match!?!

To get to from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station, I had to take a 15-minute train ride.  The anticipation was burning inside me, making my blood boil and my knees bounce.  But alas, I got to the station with no pick-pocketing or trouble.  Now all I had to do was find Alexa and Sam to get this party started.  This proved the most difficult leg of the trip.  Relying solely on BBM makes describing places and finding people nearly impossible.  Sam told me to walk outside and when I did I found no Sam even though he claimed to be there.  For nearly 20 minutes I was walking up and down and over through the train station contemplating giving up and staying in the station for the remainder of the weekend.  By some miracle, I found another outside entrance, opposite the side I arrived on, and lo and behold I saw the most wonderful sight in the world.  One of my dearest friend’s face peered from around a light pole.  Immediately Alexa ran and we embraced each other in the sort of movie-cliché reunion that makes you want to throw up it’s so cute.  Well friends, grab the puke bucket, because we are that cute. 

Sam led us back to the hotel – on a side note, I would have been lost in Amsterdam forever if Sam Hamburger did not exist – where I set my bags down and then set off for the city. The first thing I noticed was how interesting the buildings of Amsterdam were.  Built along the maze of canals, these narrow brick buildings really struck me for some reason.  Each one seemed to have a bit of different character about it even though the façades between the buildings differed only ever so slightly.

Our first stop for the day was Anne Frank’s House, Prinsengracht 267.  We somehow arrived at the perfect time, encountering no line or wait at all to enter.  When you set foot into the house you are immediately overcome with a somber feeling.  Once upon a time, a family walked along these floors and lived a regular life.  And once upon a time, that right was wrongfully revoked and the family was forced to live in fear and silence in a secret annex.  As you walk through the museum, diary quotes line the walls and video/audio recordings tell the story of the Franks, Van Peels, and Fritz Pfieffer struggles during Nazi persecution.  What I enjoyed about this museum is the humanity that seeing the rooms brings to the story told in Anne’s diary.  Sunday school has told me the story multiple times but to see the exact places where important events occurred and to imagine the family makes the story all the more real and tragic.

To bring our moods up, Sam, Alexa, and I decided to walk around town and check out the beautiful scenery around the city.  Since Sam and Alexa had been there for four days already, they knew a lot of interesting places to see and were more than happy to show me around.  With every street Sam took me down, I could have sworn we were walking down the same street as before.  The canals that flow through the city don’t allow you any landmarks to be able to distinguish one from another and to be frank, it’s just embarrassing to try to say street names like “Blauwburgal”. 

I soon met up with Nikki, Liv, Schulman, Larg, and their friend Sofia to go hang out at a coffeeshop and catch up since I haven’t seen them since leaving for abroad and it felt just like home to see their beautiful faces.  We sat and swapped stories of our semesters so far and soon parted for bed knowing tomorrow would start early in order to get a full day of Amsterdam in.

My cute friends

Magical...

Around 10 o’clock, Nikki and I woke up to get ready for the day.  I met up with Sam and Alexa and we headed over to Pancakes! to get some, yes you guessed it, pancakes.  We ordered a piece of apple cake to start the day off and then each ordered a pancake.  Mine came with goat cheese, sautéed spinach, pine nuts, salad pits (whatever those are), and drizzled in garlic oil.  My oh my this pancake was something else.  The Dutch REALLY know how to make a pancake.  This pancake was a wonderful light, thin canvas for the toppings.  If pancakes had academy awards, this bad boy would’ve won Best Supporting Role in a Meal.  Alexa even exclaimed at one point that it was the single best thing she had ever eaten.  Just to give you an idea…

We then headed out for the Van Gogh Museum.  I was super amped to see this because Van Gogh has been a favorite of mine since learning about him in middle school.  The museum is the largest collection of Van Goghs in the world with over 200 paintings.  The museum is broken into time periods of Vincent Van Gogh’s life, which allows you the ability to see him, progress as a painter, but also as a person.  Letters to Vincent’s brother Theo are painted on the walls, which open a window into his emotional states at particular moments in his life while the painting descriptions explain not only the painting but also his feelings about them.  The museum is wonderfully done in that you’re able to make a genuine connection with the paintings before you and I find that extremely rare since majority of the time I look at a painting I only see it for what it is a point blank rather than its meaning and motivations. The saddest part of Vincent’s life is that he was never appreciated for his paintings until after his death, so he died feeling worthless.  In a field, Vincent shot himself in the chest with a revolver and died two days later in a hospital.  His last words were, “the sadness will last forever.”  If only he had known how marvelous his talents were, how unique his style was, and how loved he is today.  The way Van Gogh paints is even more beautiful than photos of his works show.  His paintbrush leaves raised short strokes and the colors that he uses are so bright and colorful (in most paintings, though there are exceptions) yet so simple.  The shading on one of his self-portraits is done only in yellow and red strokes, no blending or smearing at all.  Just one color but a whole lotta dimension.  My trip here was the best part of the weekend for me and I say it is a MUST if you ever find yourself in Amsterdam. My favorite paintings housed inside are: Sunflowers, A Pair of Leather Clogs, The Potato Eaters, Skull of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, Almond Blossom, Pieta, Wheatfield with Crows (the last before his death), A Pair of Shoes, a self portrait done, and Landscape at Twilight. I could stare at his works forever and not once would my eyes tire. 

I will live above that elephant one day.

To start the night off, we headed to a nearby bar to have a Heineken freshly brewed in Amsterdam.  On our way we heard a street performer singing “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman so we stopped to listen…that is until the smell of the public urinals became too awful.  It’s weird that they have that and American finally has one hand up on Europe. Congrats, it’s the only one you’ll be getting.  I like Heinekens, but I love Heinekens in Amsterdam.  Either it was the extreme dry mouth I had from not drinking all day or that Heineken really was a better thirst quencher than lemon-lime Gatorade after four days in the desert.

maybe the prettiest picture i've ever taken?

I went back to the hotel to take a quick shower and meet up with Nikki then the four of us went to go get dinner.  We tried a Tibetan restaurant called Snow Lion since none of us had ever had Tibetan food.  The only patrons in the restaurant left 5 minutes after we had sat down, leaving us in an extremely intimate setting.  I didn’t mind it at all, it was quite peaceful.  The menu was entirely vegetarian with a small “Non-Vegetarian Section,” which I found to be really cool.  I love vegetarian food and sometimes the meat consumption in Florence is too much to handle, so this was a nice break from the pattern.  We ordered spinach and goat cheese Momo (which were AMAZING!), a fennel and potato slaw, stir fried vegetables (one with tofu and one spicy without), and a super good vegetable dumpling soup.  Snow Lion, you truly made a fan of Tibetan food out of me.  I love your people and I love your food.

When the morning came, sorrow followed – why did I have to leave this wonderful city of arts and food? To make my morning brighter, Sam, Alexa, Nikki and I went to Barney’s Uptown for breakfast.  Here you can get the yummiest breakfast foods your heart can dream of – giant bagels, pancake roulades, omelettes, sandwiches, mimosas, anything.  I set my sights high and went with a pancake roulade with scrambled eggs inside topped with melted cheese and bacon.  A wonderful choice I must add.

And then it was off to the dreaded airport for my departure.  The trip had ended and my journey back to Florence has just begun.

When in Rome!

Ahhhh it has been too long friends and family.  Sorry for the delay, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do and I can think of no better way than telling you about my trip to Rome with my Great Masters Art History Class. 

Building Facade of Galleria Borghese

The class and I left for Rome at 7 in the morning and arrived around 11:30 just in time for lunch.  We then met up and headed over to the Villa Borghese, which hosues the Museo e Galleria Borghese.  This museum is what used to be the summer home of the Borghese family and I must say what a summer home this place was.  Marble of the most extraordinary colors and designs covered the floors, lined the walls in giant columns, and statues in every room were chiseled from the stunning stone.  Let’s just say that if this were my summer home, I wouldn’t ever leave the house. As we walked around, students gave presentations on different works of art, each one as magnificent as the next.  I felt extremely overwhelmed to be standing in front of centuries-old creations of masters like Bernini and Caravaggio that were so important during the renaissance era.  The feeling was similar to staring face to face with a ghost - only instead of the color draining out of my face, it warmed as the blood rushed to my head as my brain tried to comprehend all of the complexities and history behind these statues and paintings before me.  I still can’t quite figure out how someone can take a giant slab of marble and turn it into something so beautiful.  It’s as if a particular moment has been extracted straight from the renaissance era and preserved in marble for years and set on display.  The details in the stone are so lifelike that it’s difficult to accept that these sculpted humans are made of marble and not flesh and blood.  Weeks after returning from this trip, I’m still sitting in awe.  So goes Rome…

My lil' pup pup friend!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take any photos in the gallery so instead I will just tell you about my favorite piece of art there.  At the ripe age of 24, Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted Apollo and Daphne…so I better get to stepping on my masterpieces.  The story of this sculpture is nearly as beautiful as the sculpture itself.  As Greek mythology says, when Apollo insulted Cupid, Cupid sought revenge and shot Apollo with a golden arrow while also shooting a most gorgeous nymph Daphne with a lead arrow.  While Apollo fell madly in love with Daphne, Daphne felt nothing but hatred for Apollo (and every other person who attempted to woo her).  Eventually, Cupid stepped in and helped Apollo get a hand up on catching her, when Daphne called upon her father for help asking, “Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!” As she wished, her skin turned into bark, her hair into leaves, and her arms into branches while her feet took root in the soil beneath them; she had become a laurel tree.  Even as a tree, Apollo loved Daphne just as much and vowed to tend to her forever as a tree, use her branches to decorate the heads of leaders.  On the base of the sculpture lies an engraved quote, “Those who love to pursue fleeting forms of pleasure, in the end find only leaves and bitter berries in their hands.”

After leaving the Villa, we went on to see so many churches that I cannot recall the name of one.  Pretty soon, the sun had set and it was dinner time.  Our teacher, Katarina, who might I add is one of the most intelligent women I have ever met, took us to one of the only remaining restaurants who continue to brew Roman beers.  And this woman can drink too (she’s Austrian, c’mon)! I had a stupendous meal of a Roman traditional spaghetti with pepper and pecorino.  I know…three ingredients and my head was spinning.  Even so, my favorite part of the meal was getting to sit my teacher in such a formal setting and talk about every day things that you rarely get a chance to do.  I always find the idea of my professors being real people odd because it’s just so hard to imagine them living any other lives besides being an educator.  Usually my first thing to do when meeting a professor is to picture them in their living room…always humorous to see what my imagination conjures up in its free time.

M.J. lives on in Rome!

The next morning, we woke up early with the intent of covering every inch of Rome by foot.  Breakfast in the hotel was a treat, let me tell you, just because there were scrambled eggs.  I’m not sure why, but it seems as though Italians just don’t eat breakfast.  Totally contradicts the American rule that breakfast should be the biggest meal of the day.  And look how that turned out…Americans are larger than Saint Peter’s Basilica while the Italians are thinner than the spaghetti they eat.  Interesting, no? Moving on. 

Trevi Fountain by Night.  Legend has it that if you throw a coin into the fountain you return to Rome...I threw three.

The Pantheon is an old Roman Temple from 126 AD.  It really is truly amazing that such a building was able to be created of this magnitude in such an ancient time.  Even 2000 years after it was built, the dome of the Pantheon still remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome.  Just take a minute and try to figure out how to do that. In fact, take a lot of minutes.  Take some years.  Good luck.  The oculus in the dome, which is the only place that light comes in to illuminate the room, was my favorite part of the building.

All artists who want glory and fame please apply to make my marble plaque.

After grabbing a quick, and the hands down best cappuccino I have ever had at   Sant Eustachio Il Caffe, we headed to The Fountain of Four Rivers, located in Piazza Navona.  This fountain was my presentation and also a happened to be a second favorite of the city’s masterpieces.  No surprise that it was another Bernini sculpture, either.  Each of the gods depicted in the fountain represent the four continents that at the time were thought to exist.  Each tiny detail of the gods hints towards their respectable continents: the Ganges god carries an oar which symbolizes the navigability of the river, Nile god is draped in loose piece cloth which symbolizes that no one knew exactly where the source of the Nile was, the Danube god touches the Papal coat of arms, symbolizing that it is the largest river closest to Rome, and finally, the Rio della Plata river is sitting on a pile of coin which symbolizes the riches America may offer to Europe.  All of the sight seeing had worked up the appetite of the class and yet again, Katarina’s knowledge of Rome led us to a wonderful pizza place near the Pantheon.  My friends Chrissie, Catherine, and Kathleen split four pizzas between us: Mushroom, sausage, and onion; fiore di zucca (zucchini flowers!); prosciutto crudo; and cuatro fromaggio (one of the cheeses was bleu cheese?!).  I really truly enjoyed the formal setting again as we split bottles and bottles of wine among the class tables getting to know each other.

Be jealous.

Are you not entertained? Well then, perhaps the Colosseum pictures will change your mind.  This place is effin’ cool.  The moment you step into the walls of the Colosseum, you feel like a spectator of Ancient Rome.  Let your imagination run free as you picture the wildest of battles go on in the stadium floor before you.  While the actual floor is no longer in tact, you can see down into the chambers that hid beneath the wood of the battleground.  It was through these chambers that the gladiators would walk through, but also where the exotic animals that had been starved and mistreated would be transported up to the floor where they would either ravishly tear apart the gladiators or meet their maker at the tip of a sword.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for animal rights, but this is some really cool stuff to see.  An interesting fact I learned there is that they used to flood the entire stadium to do boat races.  Also, the reason that the Colosseum is so torn apart is because Romans used to take bricks and stone from the building’s structure to build houses and other buildings, not valuing at all the grandeur of such a place.  It seems the old saying, “you only know what you’ve got when it’s gone,” rings true even for Rome.

Fast forward to the next morning.  To get a spot in line at the Vatican, we had to wake up at 6 am and go to wait for an hour in line just to wait in another line.  Well worth the wait I’d say.  The contents of the Vatican Museum were a perfect depiction of the power that it holds in the world today.  A few of my noted favorites were The School of Athens, Disputation of the Most Holy Sacrament (a wonderful fresco that shows the conflictions between religion and science), The Transfiguration, St. Jerome (a sketch of an unfinished Leonardo Da Vinci work – a small square once cut out was recovered from the bench of a shoemaker, what a lucky bum), the Hallway of Maps, and of course the Sistine Chapel.  Pictures of these places do no justice, in fact almost disrespect, the magnificence of each art piece.  I honestly had no idea that the Vatican Museum was so big, or so crowded.  And this was apparently the “down” season for the Vatican.  Holy hell – pun intended.  Even Katarina was a bit taken aback by the crowd and I’m pretty sure we lost half of the class on our way to the Chapel.  Through my tour headphone I could hear Katarina talking about a painting but I’d have not the slightest clue where she was coming from.  That was a bit annoying, but I was too busy staring at the mosaic floors made of the tiniest marble tiles and imagining how long it would take to make.  

School of Athens

Ceiling of the Hallway of Maps

We were let loose for lunch and happened upon this wonderful restaurant where they spoke no English at all.  That’s how you know it’s authentic, fyi.  Luckily, our friend Ryan speaks rather good Italian and we somehow convinced the cook to serve us family style with a bunch of her favorites.  Yet another gastronomic success to add to my never ending list.  Seriously…I’m not coming home.

Our final stop was to St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world (it covers about 5.7 acres)!  To build this basilica today would cost somewhere around $50 billion.  Please send your donations to my home address, personal checks are accepted and all amounts are appreciated.  I stood speechless staring up at the marvelous dome above St. Peter’s tomb until I realized that my class had moved over to hear about Michelangelo’s Pieta.  

I found Nell!

This trip left me knowing one thing and that is that you can go to Rome every day for the rest of your life and see something new each time.  The empire may have fallen, but the Renaissance lives on in this city of splendor.  I highly recommend a trip here.

Four Rivers Fountain

Don't let the outfits deceive you. These men are no clowns.

I Went to Switzerland and All I Got Was This Lousy Adrenaline Rush

 

Guten tag, as the Swiss say, I’ve just returned from a weekend trip to Switzerland! And must I say, it is quite a beautiful country.  I woke up around 2:30 am, after dozing off during out nine-hour bus ride from Florence, to a flurry of snow going on outside my window.  The snow accumulation was so much that it looked like q-tips and snowmen were growing instead of trees.  Because of the view outside, it took me a few minutes to realize the fact that our large coach bus was winding around a narrow, snow covered street on a mountainside. My head became filled with thoughts of how this bus does not belong here – not because of the size of the road, but more so because I felt like I was in the barest landscape where humans could never survive without their technology or machinery.  To my right was a cliff covered in wired fence to keep boulders from cascading down and crushing any car that may be unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  To my left, the cliff continued down to a barren, white plain with a tiny village lit only by the fires I imagined roaring inside each home to keep the family from freezing to death.  How fortunate we are to have created such technologies.

At about four in the morning, we arrived at our hostel called Funny Farm.  At the door was a behemoth St. Bernard laying as if she was another piece of furniture installed in the lobby (Spliff, was her name, as I would soon find out the next morning lolz).  The hostel was an interesting place to say the least.  I think the only difference between a hostel and hotel may be that the s in hostel stands for shitty.  Walking into our room, I felt like I had stepped into the 1970s.  Our bathroom had a flowery hippy curtain and fake vinyl tiles that reminded me so much of the Brady Bunch house where Marsha and Greg would start their mornings.  Now, if only I had Alice to clean it up for me. 

My alarm went off at 8 am, playing its usual “Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…” tune that so often jolts me out of bed.  Our all inclusive breakfast was not so much a breakfast as a loaf of bread that you could put jam on (for the big eaters, of course).  I’ve actually noticed that Europeans don’t really eat breakfast…very strange.  And bad for your metabolism.  Anyhow, I grabbed a piece of bread and darted out the hostel in excitement for my activity soon to come – sky diving.  But not just any sky diving, sky diving out of a helicopter.  What’s the difference you ask?  Do let me enlighten you:  when you jump out of a plane you actually decelerate from 180 mph to 140 mph (because the plane is already moving when you jump); however, when you jump out of a helicopter, the chopper is stationary which means you go from 0 to 140 mph in just seconds.  I know, I’m a badass.  To my parents…sorry I had to put you through reading this just now.  But now that it’s over, we can joke about it, right? That being said, stop reading this paragraph because you may not want to read what I’ve got to say about the experience.  The feeling that I experienced instantly after stepping off of the helicopter platform is like nothing I have ever felt before.  To say my stomach dropped like a roller coaster wouldn’t even begin to compare.  It was like I left my stomach in the helicopter while the rest of my body plummeted 14,000 feet over Switzerland.  Sheer adrenaline shot through me as I fell from above the clouds, then through the clouds, and finally felt the yank of my parachute slow me down to a glide.  Andrew, the man attached to my back, handed me the parachute controls as we did circles and I screamed in ecstasy.  This was by far the coolest thing I have ever done, and would honestly do it a thousand times over just to feel the rush again.

Even at 140 mph, I still thought to blow kisses.  If that's love, baby, I don't know what is.

Okay parents, you can resume reading here.  For lunch, we headed to the top of a ski mountain, which proved more difficult than expected.  Two trains, two gondolas, and lots of headache, we finally got to the top and had an interesting meal.  Let’s just say meatballs in Switzerland are nowhere near the same thing as meatballs in Italy.  Something gets lost in translation…

 

Our included chocolate tasting came next.  Yes, Mom, it came before dinner, sorry.  When I walked into Swiss Chocolate Chalet, I was delightfully surprised to see the cutest little Swiss Willy Wonka standing with a platter of chocolates.  The different types of chocolate flavors and shapes was enough to make Augustus Gloop poop in his pants.  (For Ricki: “Somebody save my Augustus! He is drowning!” No but really, If I’m ever drowning in a Swiss Chocolate river, please, I beg you…do NOT attempt to save me.  I’m enjoying myself more than you’ll ever know.)  The man went on to tell us how to taste chocolate, what the percentages and hours stated on the labels mean, the whole time feeding us the creamiest, most interesting flavors of chocolates I’ve ever placed in my mouth.  White chocolate with lemon and thyme, dark chocolate with pieces of chili pepper, champagne truffles, cappuccino chocolates that even LOOK like cappuccino, and anything else this little man dreams up in his chocolate factory.  I brought some back to Florence to bring home, but we all know that there is a slim chance I let that chocolate sit in my room all by its lonesome.

 

The next day I got to ski the Swiss Alps.  I got off the chairlift at the top of a mountain, looking eye to eye with clouds.  The views from up there are really something else.  Glancing around, I felt the mountains seemed so stoic.  After years and years of people climbing them, jumping from them, skiing all over them, they still retained the natural beauty and seemed unbothered at all that people were exploiting them for a quick shot of adrenaline.  The snow glistened in a way that looked like a child was pouring glitter in front of a fan and blowing it all over the place.  I was in my own snow globe and wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.  Then I looked down at all of the runs to be skied down.  I pulled my neck warmer up and my goggles down and booked it down the mountain.  My skies disappeared under the knee-high powder in between the trees and before I knew it, I had reached the chairlift again.  I admit, the mountain is a bit hard to navigate since it’s rarely marked (except for where not to ski) and everything is written in German, but you get a hang for it after a couple of runs.  This day was something I’ll never forget.

I told my mom that I was in love with Switzerland.  But I had also told her when I got to Florence that I was in love with Florence.  For giving my heart away so willingly, I was called fickle. I choose to refute this accusation, and instead I say that my heart is big enough to share with whatever country can steal a piece of it.