Last Post

I'm sitting here on my last day, running on 4 hours of sleep and with a ridiculous amount of caffeine in my system- 4 pages to go on a paper that I have to get done today with a final exam at 2. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off, but I will somehow. Looking back, I can remember so clearly getting on that plane to leave to come to Italy, not really knowing what was going to come next. I remember being so homesick and jetlagged the first couple of weeks, but now Bologna has become like home. Everything that passed in between just seems like a dream that I never wanted to wake up from- this semester has not been real life. But, time marches on. It's funny, just when you finally think you're settled in somewhere life tends to throw you a curve. I didn't come to Europe to "find myself" or any of those cliches that people love to throw around when they travel here. The only reason I decided to come was to escape Dickinson after I tore up my knee, knowing that it would be tough to stick around Carlisle for very long without football. Well, I think I did end up inadvertently "finding myself," as ridiculous as that sounds to actually write down. I don't know whether it was being here in Europe or just the fact that I was basically living totally independent for the first time. Probably a little bit of both to be honest, but I feel like I have a much better understanding of who I actually am. I loved it here, every last day, even if it was just a lazy day around the apartment. I'm really considering taking the Foreign Services exam when I graduate next year. I know that would probably come as a blow to my family, but I've always wanted to lead an interesting life and look back and say I was never afraid of an adventure. It'd be better to go for something like that than to always sit back in a regular 9 to 5 selling Product X and wonder what was on the other side. Didn't have one bad trip, hardly met any people I didn't like, and I'm telling you the food was absolutely amazing. The difference between Europe and the States is like the difference between your local Mom and Pop store and Wal-Mart. Do I miss America? Yeah. Am I ready to go back? Absolutely not. But, tomorrow I will be on that plane because that's life. I've met some great people here. Guys like Sebastian, Gomes, Andre and a lot of others all have a place to stay if they ever decide to visit America, and if I in fact have a place and don't have to resort to Plan D (living as a homeless man on a beach somewhere). Then of course are the Via Boldrini guys...Den, Manuel, Luca, Juan- we've had a lot of great times just hanging out almost every single day. Kids are absolutely insane. Finally, Umberto. Might get in trouble for this, but dude probably lived in our apartment for a solid month when he had nowhere else to go. I learned so freaking much Italian from him- first just trying to figure out what the hell he was saying to me, then being able to understand without responding, and finally being able to communicate, not always perfectly, but you could lock me in a room with him for an hour or two and I would understand about 80-90% of it. He's trying to visit America this year...I don't think he really understands that Animal House probably isn't the best representation of Dickinson College. Kid's become one of my better friends in the few months that I've been here...and that's saying a lot considering that I didn't even like those guys too much at first- couldn't get past all the differences in the beginning. We Americanized those kids a lot- Manuel's like a professional beer pong player now, although I can honestly say I didn't play one game of that the whole semester. I'm going to miss em, that's for sure. A lot of situations came up where the culture or language barrier ended up with some pretty hilarious stuff happening. I hope I get to see those guys again at some point. Bologna- I remember being like what the hell is this place when I first registered, but 2 years of suffering through Pagano classes and putting on a play last semester meant I wasn't going anywhere but Italy. This place is an absolute hidden gem. So many young people, so much to do, and it's just a beautiful medieval place where you just get this unbelievable sense of history. It feels like living in a museum, to be honest, but one with 100,000 college kids running wild. I don't even wanna talk about the food because it'll make me tear up, but seriously some of the best food I've ever eaten. After this trip I don't know how I'll ever be able to eat a regular piece of ham again, not to mention drink a Natty (thanks Munich), and you can forget about spaghetti and meatballs- that's like an abomination to me at this point. Pizza gets a free pass surprisingly. I am also proud to report that I've gone the entire semester without using the bidet once, something that all my other roommates can't even claim. So that's it I guess. You won't be getting some blog out of Charleston, WV this summer- but I'm glad I have a job that's making me travel so I can get the Italy bug out of my system a lot faster. I love this place...absolutely love it. In fact, tuition at the university is so cheap (1,000 euros a year) that if I ever decide to get a full time MBA this place will be on my short list. I regret never traveling before this so much. I got a late start, but at least I know now. Funny thing is, I never woulda realized what I was missing out on otherwise...if I had never busted up my knee. It's just another one of those times that you say things happen for a reason. I'm not sure if I would trade this experience for a chance to be flyin around with Fink and Sully next season, but it's been a lot closer than I ever would have imagined. Hands down best time of my life, undisputed, and it's not even close. That all being said, I got a paper to finish and an exam to "study" for. See ya when I see ya Bologna, and Dtown, as always, you have 36 hours to alert the proper authorities.

Mike

Rimini, Some Thoughts Before Leaving

Rimini- another great class trip in the books, and a great way to go out. Rimini is a pretty big city for a beach town. It was about 2 hours away. Our professors pretty much knew what was up- this trip was going to be way more about fun than anything educational. The first thing we did on Friday (after leaving at 8:20 in the morning) was go to a huge lagoon/watershed near a place called Commachio. We took a 2 hour boat ride around the area, and saw a TON of flamingos. It was pretty cool actually. The area reminded me so much of the Chesapeake- in fact for the entire trip I had this weird feeling that I was back in America because we were doing familiar things, especially at the beach. I forgot a couple of times that we weren't in America. In the bay/lagoon/whatever it was we saw a couple of old fishing shacks where they used to cook and can the eels that they caught, since eels are a big thing in that area. They were actually a delicacy in Roman times, and I think those of you that know me well can tell where this post is about to go. After the boat ride ended we went into the town, which had canals all throughout and was basically a poor man's Venice. We had a great lunch sitting outside with all the guys- and we tried eel. It was really greasy and fatty, and it was pretty good. Compared to the octopus eating eel was a piece of cake for me. The green skin threw me off, along with the tail and head, but I was glad to try something new and it wasn't that bad. After a long lunch, we hopped on the bus again and headed to this really old Abbey about a half hour away. We stayed inside for probably 10 minutes. I'm so sick of medieval churches, but it was still kind of cool. I just wouldn't go out of my way to see any more churches at this point. We finally got to Rimini at around 6:30 (wow I didn't realize how long of a day that was). We went down to check out the water for a bit, which was a bit cold but warm enough to swim in, and sat on the beach for about 45 minutes before going to dinner. Rimini might as well have been in America- it would fit right in with any Southern beach town. One street was identical to New Orleans. Rimini isn't very Medeival, and it's a bit more Americanized than most places that I've seen, but it was nice. Apparently it's possible to see Croatia across the Adriatic from Rimini, but I never did. We at dinner at a freaking Holiday Inn, but it turned out to actually be pretty good- it was ravioli and some meat. Dickinson continues to pay for our wine at dinner- so if you're wondering back in Carlisle where all your tuition money keeps going while they keep making cuts, it's overseas with the kids who were smart enough to study abroad. We all gathered up in one of our rooms at the Hotel Polo, where we were staying. It was a pretty nice hotel, although I still had to sleep in a bunk bed. Everyone was freaking out because I told them about that nutjob in the US who was calling for judgment day. We left the hotel and just started walking, listening for loud music for a place to go to. This band was at a big bar putting on a small outdoor concert...and they were absolutely rocking. The best Zeppelin cover I've ever heard- Whole Lotta Love, and they absolutely killed it. Afterward, we went to a club for a while. Overall, a really good night. The next day, they took us to an old church and then an old Roman arch, but our "tour" only lasted about an hour. For the rest of the day, we went down to the beach. The water was really flat, but we played volleyball for a while, I kicked the soccer ball around with Brenna, and we were basically all acting like little kids in the water. It was a great day. I took a walk up to a big jetty, and another one like miles down the beach without realizing how far I'd gone. I'm still pasty white though, so you can't win 'em all. I finished the day up trying to teach Mo how to swim since he's from NYC and never has to. He was like a little kid in the water- it was pretty funny. We hopped on the train at around 7 after about 6 hours of beach time and got back from the weird American time-warp of Rimini. We didn't do much sightseeing, so there's not a lot to write about, but it was one of my favorite trips because it gave me the chance to be around the whole group together for one last time.

Well...I have 5 days left here in Bologna. I can't believe it's gone by so fast, but at the same time it feels like forever ago that I was last in Dtown. I have so much stuff to get done before I go back, and a ridiculous amount of schoolwork. It's been unreal living here. A big part of me feels like the reason I couldn't play football anymore was so I could study here this semester. I definitely wouldn't have taken the plunge otherwise. It's hard for me to describe how amazing everything's been...I'm always surprised at how genuinely kind people tend to be and the beauty of everything that I've seen. I'm ready to get back to the States, but I think if I had to live in Europe in the future I could definitely do it. I really can't tell if it's just Europe, or my attitude going into it, or just me growing as a person, but every single day here has been a great day. In the movie Office Space the main character hates his job so much that he says each day gets worse than the one before it, so every day you see him you're seeing him on the worst day of his life. For me, it's pretty much been the opposite of that. I've never really been a very positive person, but I've learned to just look forward to each day here and not take anything for granted. It's been a wild ride, and I could probably use at least some normalcy at home, if not for a few days, but this is an experience I would never trade for anything. I've met so many people and seen so many different things that I honestly never thought I would. Everything here is still so new to me that pretty much every day has become an adventure. The kid writing this right now is very different from the one that left in January, for sure. When I get back home I'm sure everything will be pretty normal pretty fast, but I've definitely grown up a lot. It's funny, I didn't even want to leave to come here at the beginning, but now I'm going to find it very difficult to leave. I'm satisfied with what I've done here, and I feel like I've reached out enough to take advantage of the great opportunity that my parents gave me by letting me come. I'll never be scared of being in a situation where I don't know anyone again. I came here not knowing a soul, but I'll be leaving with a ton of great friends. Maybe we'll keep in touch, maybe not, but for a snapshot in time the people here are really what's made my time in Italy and Europe so great. You can learn a lot about yourself if you open yourself up to new experiences, and I feel like I've really come to terms with who I am as a person- I've accepted a lot of good and even a lot of bad aspects of my personality. I'm a huge nerd- I figured out that in absolutely no way at all am I cool. The fact that I'm even writing this blog in the first place should be your first clue. Anyone who remembers me as a kid knows I've always been a little different. I'm fine with that though. Being a hyper little bastard at such a young age separated me from the pack a bit by default, so I've been able to kind of view the world from a different angle than most for my whole life. When you can accept something like that and be willing to march to the beat of your own drum it's a beautiful thing- you become accountable to nobody else but yourself, you have nobody controlling your actions and I think that's the only way you can ever be truly happy. Being in Europe has really given me the chance to do that- when I get back to America I'll get settled in and everything won't be so carefree anymore because I'll have actual responsibilities again. It'll be normal. But, like I was saying before about my friends in Europe, for a snapshot in time this has been my state of mind. I must have been doing something right though because at home I would have just like a really dark day every once in a while, just very pessimistic about everything. It's been the complete opposite here- every time something goes wrong I say "Hey I'm still having the time of my life." Hopefully at least part of that optimism, will stay with me. It's been pretty hard to be negative about anything this semester. This year, even including the semester at Dickinson has been the best year of my life. There's been a lot of ups and downs, a ton of anxiety, and of course having to let go of Hols, but that's the beauty of life. It's the ebb and flow of it all, like waves washing up on the sand, that makes it worth anything. I try not to make too many plans because I know that 99% of the time it doesn't work out the way you thought it would. I've been dealt a pretty good hand, though, so I'm just going to keep handing over the wheel and seeing what comes next. It's been absolutely great here, and I'm sad to go, but at the same time I'm looking to the future to see what's in store for me. This post has really been for me more than anything else; it's good to look back and see the changes. The mentality that I've adopted here probably won't last to be perfectly honest, but it's been one hell of a ride and if I could do it all over again I would do it the exact same way.

Eatin Weird Stuff

Just throwin this up here to warn everyone. If you're feelin a little brave in Italy, maybe you're out at a seafood place feelin like trying something crazy...do NOT get octopus unless you're a little off. Tried it the other night expecting it to be all cut up like calamari or something but it was literally whole baby octopi in my pasta. I can't tell what was weirder, knowing that I was chomping down on their heads or when I ate a bigger one and some of their tentacles were hanging out of my mouth like spaghetti. It was decent but definitely not worth almost puking over. Still ate it though. On the other end of the spectrum...tried frog's legs a couple of weeks ago at my Chinese lady's place. Phenomenal. I might even be down for going to that ridiculous frog leg feast back in Dtown...tastes like chicken. Didn't go to Abruzzo, too much schoolwork and not enough time or money left.

Munich= Meat City????, Dachau

Just got back from Munich this morning/last night at 5 AM, and I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, but it was definitely worth it. If Munich wasn't my favorite city in Europe, it was at least one of my most enjoyable weekends since I came to Europe. I think Petey might be contemplating actually moving there- kid was in his element the entire time (the beer and sausage element...which probably makes up at least 60% of Pete's entire personality). You guys must be getting pretty bored with my posts at this point, because everywhere I go the report is usually exactly the same...it was awesome.

After a great night with Dickinson, learning how to make tagliatelle pasta and having a great dinner with the Amici di Dickinson ("Friends of Dickinson") and my class, I headed out to a birthday party for a couple of French girls in the giardini, which was a nice change of pace from the usual party scene here in Bologna on Wednesday nights. Overall, it was just a great night, but I realized pretty early on that the lady teaching us to make pasta is an expert and I have no chance of ever recreating what she made, so don't get your hopes up for me cooking back home. The "Friends of Dickinson" is a nice little organization of Italian people connected with the center who put on some events to make sure we have a good experience in Bologna. I was pretty grateful for everything they did, and of course for all the great wine, prosciutto, and pasta that seemed to come endlessly at dinner. The whole thing was at an old farm that one of the older guys helped to rebuild. Like I said, afterward I ended up going down to the giardini for the night.

I woke up in the morning and tried to get my laundry done before my train left, but of course the laundromat was full so I ended up getting pretty creative with the clothes I was wearing all weekend. I hopped on the train at 11:30 for my 7 hour trip, the last long distance trip I'll be taking in Europe. The train ride was awesome, riding through the Italian alps, and then up through Austria and Innesbruck before getting into Munich at about 6:30. For a second in Innesburck, I was seriously convinced that I had gotten on the wrong train because the conductor thanked everyone for choosing OBB for their travel, but it all worked out and I ended up in Munich right on time. The first thing I noticed, especially on the train, was how abruptly the architecture changes from Italy to Austria and Germany. Up toward the Alps, though, there's this really weird region called South Tyrol which is technically part of Italy, but they speak German and Italian there. At the time, I had no idea where I was, so my mind was basically blown. When I got into Munich, I immediately got lost looking for my hostel but somehow still ended up in the main square. I waited for about 5 hours for Petey and his friends from Vienna to get in, and with my limited knowledge of German (read:none) I decided to just get KFC for dinner, since people at fast food places here usually speak English enough to give you your order. Pete's tried to teach me some things so many times, but I still can't even say hello or count to 3 in German...guess it must just be a language overload with Italian. The city is pretty nice, and it's definitely more modern than anything here in Italy. I guess after WWII, the city was obviously devastated by bombings, but they rebuilt it to look somewhat old to restore the original architecture the best they could. In the main square, there was the Rathaus and the famous glockenspeil with a bunch of figures that move and depict different important Bavarian scenes twice a day I believe. Our tour guide the next day called it the second most overrated tourist attraction in Europe but I still thought it was pretty cool. I basically just walked around, not really knowing exactly what I was seeing, but looking forward to Petey getting in because I knew it was going to be a great time. He finally got in at around 11:30, and we walked back down to the city center from our hostel trying to get our first beer in Munich. We couldn't find anywhere that was open, though, so we just walked back to our hostel. I will say, for the money we paid for our hostel, it was very clean and perfect for what we needed. It was really cool, and set up with a bar on one side, a breakfast place on the other, and they had plenty of events designed for younger tourists.

The next day, we woke up pretty early and were all excited to start going around the city. The girls wanted to go on a tour, and Pete and I almost didn't do it, but I'm really glad we did. We had this Irish tour guide named Donagh who showed us all of the important stuff in the city center and had some great stories about the city. At the beginning of the tour, he told us that if he asked us a question, about 85% of the time the answer would be beer. I thought he was kidding, but the beer culture is just so ingrained in the daily lives of people in Munich that I'd say his estimate was spot on. We started off at the Rathaus, where the tour guides were just absolutely knocking the glockenspiel...but I figured out later that its probably because they have to sit there and watch it every single day, so I could definitely understand where they were coming from. We saw the main church (I forget what it's called) that according to legend was built by the hands of Satan. Legend also has it that the devil's footprint is in the front of the Church. The story goes that the devil came to destroy the church before he saw its design, which didn't have very many windows. He agreed to build the rest of the church as long as the architect wouldn't put in any more windows, thinking that the church would be too gloomy for people to worship God in. No more windows were added, but when the devil returned after 20 years (when the church was completed) it was all lit up due to clever designing, so he stamped his foot in the front. Apparently that story is officially a part of Catholic teaching, and obviously I don't know how true it is but the fact that the church was built in only 20 years when others that size generally take hundreds it kind of makes you wonder...... Close by to the church was this really strange Michael Jackson shrine that the city keeps tearing down but people keep putting back up. If MJ's shrine is so important to them I can't wait to see what they put up when Hasselhof bites the dust. We saw a place where Mozart may or may not have lived, a great outdoor market, and of course the Hofbrauhaus. At the market is a giant maypole, and Donagh told us that towns all across Germany try to steal each others' maypoles every year in basically a national game of capture the flag. The ransom for the maypole is a huge party...and beer. In 2005 the cops even stole a maypole from the bierhall in the airport in Munich and didn't give it back until the whole police force got a party and free beer. People also carve maypoles for girls they like, and if the girls don't like them back they give them a case of jam. I'm just kidding...it's a case of beer of course. One of the funnier things we saw was a parking space for dogs outside of a pharmacy...the Germans are just absurd people. There was also a church that they built 8 clocks on to consolidate the 4 clocks from another church that had been destroyed that they decided not to rebuild...once again just absurd. We actually got to stop in a beer hall mid way through the tour and Pete was smiling ear to ear. I've never seen a person so in their element before...just a kid who's a beer nerd about to drink a ton of some of the best beer in the world. Finally our first beer in Munich, after 10 long hours of waiting. It was great, and of course it came in the giant liter mug. People in Munich and Bavaria literally drink beer in the morning the way we eat bacon and eggs...it's just the way they do it there. We then went outside and saw the main shopping road where all the rich people in Munich go, and there were some ridiculously expensive cars. We stopped by the opera house, which had a great story in its past concerning...you guessed it, beer. From what I remember, it was burning down in the 1800's I believe, and they tried to put the fire out with beer since so many breweries and bierhalls were so close, but somewhere along the way people stopped trying to put the fire out and ended up just drinking the beer and watching the opera house go down in flames. Our next stop on the tour was a street where a lot of passive resistance against the Nazis occurred, the site of where Hitler first tried to stage a revolution and take Munich under Nazi control, but ultimately failed. There was a plaque during the regime commemorating the 20 "brave Nazis" killed in the revolt, although 4 were police fighting and 1 was an innocent bystander. It was interesting to see how the Nazis were constantly rewriting the history books as it suited them. However, people who couldn't stand to salute the plaque ducked down this one alleyway, usually risking some kind of arrest. Hitler ended up using that same square to throw a lot of rallies and give speeches, and it was pretty creepy standing in the exact place that he must have been. I was extremely interested in trying to figure out Hitler's rise to power, because a lot of people knew what he was all about from the start. It's just amazing to see how he could convince millions of people to accept his total control and heap hatred on everyone who didn't fit into the Aryan mold. I don't think I'll ever fully understand. We ended our tour on that spot, and it was off to the beer halls. We started out at the Hofbrauhaus, which is the biggest and most famous pub in the world. I think they said it had seating for like 9,000 people or something but don't quote me on that. They have these people called stamsteich or stamtag I can't really remember because German goes in one ear and out the other for me, but they have their own tables and are allowed to kick anyone out who sits there. To become one, you have to drink at the Hofbrauhaus 3 times a week for 15 years. Immediately reminded of us at home with Stadium Grille...I still don't know why we don't have our own table there yet. The beer was delicious of course. We spent the rest of the day going to bierhalls all over the center that Pete wanted to try, so we indulged him. We eventually remembered that even though they consider beer to be food in Munich, our American stomachs needed something else, so we headed to the market to get some cheap sassssage products. We ended up losing Pete's friend Ken somehow after he got up to go to the bathroom. We didn't find out where he was until around 10:30 that night, and at this point it was only about 4. We looked for him for an hour and a half, everywhere we could think of, which at that point wasn't very many places. We finally decided that Ken would want us to eat a fish sandwich and then go to Spring Fest, so that's what we did. (We later found out that Ken had fallen asleep sitting on a toilet in a restaurant for 2 and a half hours...he was sleeping at our hostel safe and sound when we got back...so yeah, it was that kind of a day). Spring Fest didn't really impress me at first. It's held in this giant field, which I'm pretty sure is also where Oktoberfest is. Really, all it was at first was just a fair, and not much bigger than some of the fairs I've been to. It was like looking at America in some kind of warped mirror. I was starting to get a little bummed...but then we saw the tents. There were 2 that we saw, each filled with 3-5,000 people, eating traditional German food, drinking huge beers, and listening to bands play that ridiculous German music and wearing laderhosen or however you spell it (those crazy suspender shorts things). It was epic. The whole thing ended at like 11:30, and usually I don't even go out until way past then, but trust me that was the perfect ending time because it was definitely time to go. I met a couple of German kids outside the tent and talked to them a bit, before I got totally separated from Pete and the others. I made it back to the hostel myself though. I must have some sort of internal radar because every time I have a couple of drinks in me I always end up safe in my own bed somehow. It's uncanny. Pete, however, ended up going to some bar with these Swedish guys. Let's just say he had a bit rougher of a night than I did.

The next day we took it a lot easier, and headed out to the last stop on the train out of Munich to this little town to go to the Sacred Mountain of Beer...yes it's a real place, and probably John F. Twineman's summer home at least. There's a monastery at the top of this hill where they brew some of the greatest beer I've ever had, if not the best. We had to hike for about an hour through the woods to get there, and it was really one of the coolest places I've ever seen. All of a sudden, out of all the trees we could see a field and a big dome. The church was beautiful, and there was a great view of the Bavarian countryside. You could even see the alps in the distance. We went to one of the 3 bier gardens and I had literally the best beer of my life. It was a double bock, essentially brewed by God himself. We sat there for an hour just taking in the sights and watching the priests around us drinking beers. It really is just a part of life there. Beer is to Bavarians as wine is to Italians as soda or iced tea is to Americans, basically. They honestly think its essential to health to drink beer. I can't say I agree, but one apfelweiss, a couple of weisswurst, and German potato salad later we sadly said goodbye to the Sacred Mountain of Beer before hiking down to the train. We saw these 14 or 15 year old kids playing in the street in the town, some kind of dodgeball type game where they try to hit a big water bottle in the middle. They all had beers lined up perfectly in front of them, and when one team hit the bottle in the middle I was shocked to see 3 15 year old kids in the middle of the street with their beers pointed to the sky chugging until the other team could get the bottle back to its place in the middle. I'm going to have to bring that one back to Phi Delt in the fall. It was nice to see a little town outside of Munich, and I'm very happy that we went. We got back into the city, and then went to go meet up with some kids from Pete's program who had been couchsurfing with a couple of Germans (staying at their house for free...it's a concept I still don't really understand and even though it's pretty common among young people in Europe, I don't think it's something that people would ever really do in America). They told us they were having a barbecue, so we just assumed it would be at someone's house with a few people. WRONG. They were actually down by the river, with about 3,000 other people who had been hanging out all day. There were fires everywhere, and police, and ambulances. It was just a giant tailgate with no actual event to go to after. It was great. They picked probably the worst spot in the whole place, though. We had to climb down a bridge that was probably 12-15 feet off the ground to get to their little spot, and Tristan ended up breaking the mug that he had bought at Andechs (the Sacred Mountain). We only stayed there for about 20 minutes, then headed off to a few bars that the German guys wanted to show us. One was named Damien and the other was Henrich, and they turned out to be great guys who just wanted to show us a good time. We had a lot of fun with them. There was this cool little place that was basically like a drive through bar that we went to, and a couple others that were just pretty standard places. Overall, though, it was a great night because we got to go to a bunch of places that we never would have found otherwise and got to know a little bit about the real culture of Munich. We did back off on the gas pedal a bit, though, because I had convinced Pete to go to Dachau in the morning and I wanted to have my wits about me.

The next morning, we woke up early, got all of our stuff together, and checked out of the hostel. We still had a full day, though, because my train left at 9 PM and Pete's bus didn't leave until 11:30. We both decided that it was really important to go see a concentration camp while we had the chance, and the same tour company that gave us our tour on Friday had one to Dachau. Dachau was the first concentration camp, and the one that all the others were modeled after. They used to say "have the Dachau spirit" to encourage guards to be even crueler to the prisoners in other concentration camps, so you can imagine how evil this place was. Dachau is a town about 20 minutes outside of Munich, and I'm very surprised that they didn't change the name of their city in the wake of everything that happened there. I was kind of expecting the camp to be in some kind of barren wasteland, but it's really close to the town, which at first glance seems like any perfectly normal small town. The city runs right up next to the camp as well. Once again, I was pretty much expecting that the camp would be off somewhere in the middle of the woods or something. It was a beautiful day, which really made the whole experience more surreal and just confusing really. Day in and day out, whether it was 10 degrees or 75, the people in Dachau had to go through the same struggle to survive. The whole experience was just intense. The first thing we saw was the train tracks...but then found out those were mostly used for supplies and that prisoners came into the camp through the MAIN PUBLIC STATION. The people had to have had at least an idea of what was going on, I'd imagine. The whole time I just kept trying to ask myself what I would do if I were a German or what I would do if I were locked in a concentration camp, and I really couldn't give myself an honest answer. Would I have protected my family if I were a German? Probably, to be honest and just try to weather the storm of the Nazi rule. What I really just can't get over is the guards. To see people come in as human beings, then day after day try to pick away at them little by little, trying to mess with their minds even though you know that they're going to die anyway...that's what I can't understand. What's the point of the antagonizing? Another thing I kept thinking was that if these people (the Germans, or the guards at least) were raised Christian, obviously knowing the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, obviously knowing the JESUS HIMSELF was a Jew, how could do what they did so unflinchingly? None of it adds up. None. And it wasn't just the Jews either, which everyone focuses on for the obvious reason that it was a racial extermination, but they were also killing off Catholic priests. In fact, when the camp was liberated in 1945 there were more Catholics present than any other group, and this is why the Catholics actually have the largest religious monument within the camp. I was shocked. The one thing that stuck out to me the most was the organization of it all...it was cold and calculated, ingenious really with some of the psychological games they were using, like shelves placed on beds to remind prisoners that they had nothing to put on them, or the no smoking sign in the camp when they knew prisoners would have no means of smoking anyway, or the fake bunk that they made the prisoners slave over so that when international organizations came to investigate they would send favorable reports back about the camps. Even the front gate itself was a psychological game..."Work Sets you Free." Maybe free through an earlier death, I don't know. I've learned about the Holocaust for a long time, seen all the movies, but actually being there makes it real, not just a page in a textbook. We saw the blocks (bunks), we saw a bit of a museum inside the original reception building. We went into easily the scariest building I've ever been in, the bunker where they housed "special" prisoners, and sometimes put boards in their cells so they couldn't sit for 3 straight days, as well as beat them and etc. etc. The pain and the death just absolutely permeated the air. There were a lot of places that I couldn't stand staying near too long in the camp. The crematorium. The fucking crematorium. Excuse my language but it was like witnessing Hell on Earth. There's no other words to describe how strongly I feel about that place. I'm not an incredibly emotional guy, places like Gettysburg don't really affect me too significantly if we're being honest. At least you know it was a fair fight. Hell, at least you know both sides at least thought of each other as human. The people in the concentration camp weren't at war against the Nazis. They were just trying to get by, live their lives like anyone else. I don't want to get into the crematorium but I was literally almost physically sick, especially walking through the gas chamber, which wasn't ever used for a mass killing apparently, but just the fact that it was there. Just the fact that they went to the trouble to build it, with what they had in mind. I'm trying to describe how I was feeling, what I was thinking, but I have no words. My brain was short circuiting and it still does when I think about that place. I was very glad to get away from there. I will leave you with two things that I took away from Dachau. 1) A German citizen, from what I saw,  today is a lot like an American. Maybe that has a lot to do with the Marshall Plan yada yada yada. However, a lot of these people had grandparents in the army. Some of these grandparents were guards at concentration camps. Do NOT get this mixed up. I'm not saying that German people are Nazis today, not even a little bit. What I'm saying is, if we're so similar today, then what switch flipped back then (and I'm talking about the guards here)? Is there a switch inside all of us, given the right circumstances that is capable of such cruelty? It's a scary thought, but genocides have happened all over the world. I think the lesson to take away from that is very, very bad things can happen when a government takes too much control. Often, it can be really hard to stop. We should all be thankful in the U.S. that we have such a strong democracy with a system of checks and balances. One man should never have all the power, no matter what. 2) I think everyone, if they have the chance, should visit a concentration camp at some point. You'll only need to go once. However, if you go make sure you at least maintain a certain decorum. There were plenty of people I saw that were either only talking about beer (inside the camp), joking around, or acting like they were spending a day at a beautiful park. It really made me sad to see all of that because it's so important to respect all the suffering that took place there. We were at the site where enough murders occurred to fill a Division I football stadium. I'm always kind of shocked by people who seem to be so self absorbed that they don't even know where they are, so I dunno take it for what it's worth.

It was one of the strangest days of my life, and I was so happy to get out of there, but at the same time I felt like it was a really worthwhile experience and I'm glad I went. It was still a terrible day though. Pete and I must have said 10 words to each other the whole time, and we were just happy to get back into the city and try to get our mind off of what we'd just seen.

When we got back, it was still pretty early, so we got our last beers in Munich...one at the Hofbrauhaus, one at the Schnieder Weiss bierhall under my heavy protest, and the last one at the Augustiner brewery that was right across the street from our hostel, but for some reason we hadn't been to yet. By the time my train finally left at 9, I think I was ready to go back and spend my last few weeks in Bologna, but I still had an amazing time from start to finish, with the obvious exception of Dachau. I didn't sleep much on the train, just about 2 hours, but we got in at 4 AM...just in time for me to call my Mom and wish her a happy Mother's Day. Hopefully that scored me some more brownie points and maybe some extra cash might suspiciously show up in my bank account, who knows? Anyway, Munich is great. If you're into beer you should definitely go because it's basically the Disneyworld of beer. If you're not, it's still really cool since apparently when we stereotype Germans we're actually thinking Bavarians. 2 weeks left, almost to the day. Like I've said before I'm gonna be thrilled to get back to the States but pretty damn sad to leave Europe. Might be going to Abruzzo again this weekend, but I'm not sure because the work's starting to pile up, the funds are running low, and it's starting to feel like playtime is finally over with anyway. I'll let you all know though. Have a good week.

P.S.- I can't be 100% sure, but out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw John F. Twineman and Clyde Rippington handing Pete a beer at Spring Fest. Coulda just been my imagination.

Mike

Abruzzo and the Cinque Terre; Alex, Kira, and Kacy Visit

Once again, I'm a little late on this blog post, but it's been really busy here lately. Spring break was absolutely amazing, but in a way I'm glad it's over because by the end I was extremely exhausted and even got a little sick after visiting London because I basically didn't sleep for 2 nights in a row. I'm feeling a bit better now, and I'm looking forward to my trip to Munich in 4 days with Petey and some of his friends from his Vienna program. For now, though, I'll recap on my trip to Umberto's house in Abruzzo and my Easter weekend with Alex in the Cinque Terre.

I got back from London on Saturday and went out to this absolutely crazy club called Kindergarten Nthat night after a little Napoli trip reunion at Gilly's apartment. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best decision to go out that night, but it was still fun. John and Umberto were back in the apartment from their trip to Spain, and at this point the apartment was still an absolute disaster zone. My roommates decided it would be a great idea to leave the windows open when they left, and my friends the pigeons made a full out assault on our kitchen. Also, there was a lovely note from JB explaining that he had found maggots on the floor, which I assumed had been cleaned up because his mom had been staying in our apartment, but needless to say I found out about 3 days later that absolutely nothing had been cleaned up. It's basically a health hazard to be living in our apartment at this point. Of course, I got stuck with cleaning everything up, so it was really nice to spend 2 hours of my life cleaning up pigeon crap and maggots. Luckily, our apartment now has a fly infestation...so it's really fun to be living here. I think all the other vermin invading our apartment scared off the cockroaches, though, so there's a plus. Needless to say, I can't WAIT to have my own apartment in Charleston this summer and move out of this hellhole. With all of that aside, I did manage to escape the apartment for a few days when Umberto convinced me to go visit his hometown of Raiano in Abruzzo.

We woke up fairly early on Wednesday morning to leave, and since everyone was going home for Easter, the train we went on was actually sold out. Umberto managed to do some smooth talking at the ticket window and get us on a train, though. We ended up standing the entire 3 and a half hours, with me sick as a dog and questioning why I was even going in the first place. I'm glad I did, though, because it was a great time. We got off the train at a really cool beach town named Pescara on the Adriatic Sea to meet up with Umberto's ex-girlfriend, which ended up being hilarious because she was livid about some money Umberto was borrowing from her the entire time. We only stayed in Pescara for a couple of hours, and then caught a train for about 45 minutes to a town very close to Raiano. We ran into one of Umberto's friends on the train, and his mom gave us a ride to Umberto's house...which was an experience. Raiano is in the mountains toward the South of Italy, and its beautiful there. Of course, anyone who knows anything about the social makeup of Italy already knows that the people down south are...different. When I say different I mean freaking insane. We were hitting close to 100 KM/H in the car to Umberto's house on streets that were basically comparable to the roads around my house. Keep in mind that this was a mom driving. We got to Umberto's house, which he lives in with just his sister, at around 8:30. His house is pretty small and simple, but it was nice. His sister, Angela, and her friend Gabriela were there hanging out, and they made us some pasta for dinner. He had a dog named Pasquale who was absolutely terrified of me...probably because he could smell the American patriotism on my skin. We just basically hung around for a bit and went to a local bar for food and a beer, which was really cool because the town was so tiny (about 3,000 people) that it was one of those places where everybody knows everybody. I definitely didn't fit in...at all. I was pretty thrown off by the dialect too...I couldn't really even understand it. I remember one of Umberto's friends, probably just saying hi and stuff, but he was speaking only in dialect so it was coming off as pretty aggressive...which goes to show you, just when you think you have a handle on Italian 5 crazy kids from Abruzzo just shatter everything you think you knew. Umberto's house was really cool, though, because it was the place where all the kids even remotely close to our age came to hang out. We didn't stay up too late, though, and I got a good night's sleep.

The next day we kind of toured around the area, which like I said is really beautiful. We started out at a mall with these outrageous snow capped mountains in the background, then were riding around in this ancient Fiat Panda (it had to have been at least an '85), and Umberto took me to see the track that his dad built him for motocross. You can tell Umberto used to race, because he's an absolute demon in a car. He skidded out the Panda at the motocross track, and we came within 3 inches of hitting a post...ridiculous. We ate lunch, then headed down to the "fiume," which are rapids where all the kids go to hang out. The scenery was ridiculous, and it beat the crap out of the ole' Brandywine River where me, Pete, and the Goulets all used to hang out. The rest of the day, we just kind of hung out, before a bunch of his friends came over to go drive around some of the other towns in the area before going out to dinner. I forget the name of the one town it was in, but I took a random picture of something I thought looked cool before one of the kids told me it was a Roman aqua duct. It was actually cool to be American there, since I literally saw no other Americans the entire time in Abruzzo, and it was funny because the girls all pretty much loved me. It felt just like being the new kid transferring high schools again, with everyone curious about the weird new kid. It was really cool though. Even though the kids are kind of crazy, they were all really nice and the whole atmosphere was just a lot more relaxed and laid back. We got a great dinner that night, even though I'm pretty sure our antipasto come with tripe...or brains. Still not sure which, but I ate it anyway. After dinner, we spent the night playing beer pong (once you teach 'em, the Italian kids seem to love it even more than most Americans), and it was just a really cool small town atmosphere, something that you can't even find in Downingtown. In the morning, I was supposed to catch a train to meet up with Alex in Rome, but I ended up missing the 8:30 AM one, and basically just hung out until I could catch the next one that left at 2. I was really glad in the end that I let Umberto talk me into visiting his house because it was an experience that not many kids get to have when they study abroad. In fact, the people in charge of the program would probably kill me if they knew I went alone to visit some random Italian kid, but in reality Umberto's become a pretty good friend despite the fact that he can't really speak English and my Italian is just OK. I liked it so much, though, that I'm thinking about even going back in a couple of weeks.

I did basically a 180 degree turn when I hopped on the train to Rome, both literally and figuratively, to go to the Cinque Terre, which is way up north in Liguria, which is almost in France...and one of the most touristy (but also beautiful) places that I've visited. It's crazy that I could honestly say it was the second most beautiful place I'd visited on my spring break, next to Capri. We got in from Rome after a pretty long train ride at 1 AM to the town of Monterosso, and it was raining. It was pretty cloudy all weekend, really, but it was still beautiful there. The first thing we saw was the beach getting out of the train station, and everything was really nice all lit up at night. In the morning (Saturday), we just kind of walked around the little town, hanging out, then did the 1 and a half hour hike to Vernazza. It was a lot tougher than we thought, but the views were really cool and it was nice to be out in nature. There were a ton of lemon trees and other things planted all over the hills, and the views of the cliffs made the hassle of getting there completely worth it. We got some pizza with pesto and just hung out in Vernazza, which was probably my favorite of the 5 towns because it has a cool old church and a little castle up on the rocks. It's also right on the water. We headed back to Monterosso, and that night we got a pretty nice dinner. I got spaghetti with seafood in it, which was really good. Apparently the Cinque Terre is one of the top places in the world for anchovies, believe it or not. We went to this little enoteca that had a free tasting and I ended up buying this ridiculously good anchovy spread...and I don't even usually like anchovies. We woke up the next morning and it was Easter...Alex made me a nice Easter basket that we finished almost immediately...she even found jelly beans somehow. We spent the day hiking through the rest of the trails from Vernazza to Corniglia, which was another pretty difficult one. Corniglia is a tiny town way up on a cliff, but it was really nice. We bought some cheese and olives, and had a bottle of wine for lunch with the anchovy spread. It was a simple lunch, but everything was so good that it was probably one of the best lunches of my life. After Corniglia, it was an easy hike to Manarola, which was probably the most touristy town there...it was so packed that we didn't stay very long. We made our way from Manarola to Riomaggiore, which didn't really have a lot going on. It was cool to say that we hiked the entire Cinque Terre, though. It took us all day Sunday really to do that, and it was a great Easter. All of the towns have really colorful buildings and the views are really just spectacular. We took the train back to Monterosso that night, and Alex had made reservations for us at a pretty nice little restaurant, where we got seafood again, and I got a great seafood ravioli. Before dinner, I ducked into a church, which at that point was empty, but it was still nice to get a little time for some prayer in on Easter. The next day, we woke up and took a peek in the anchovy salting center, which for some strange reason we really wanted to see. We got to try even more anchovies, which were amazing again. I don't know if I'll eat more anchovies in the future, because like I said I hate them, but for some reason in the Cinque Terre they were ridiculous. We just hung out, took in the town some more and the beautiful cliffs and water, before we decided it was time to head back. The train to Bologna didn't take too long, and all in all I had a great spring break. There was a lot of travel, and I saw so much stuff. It will definitely go down as the best spring break of my life. If you get the chance to go to Italy, I would definitely recommend seeing the Cinque Terre.

This past weekend, Kacy and Kira came from Spain to visit Italy, and Alex came up to see them from Rome. I showed them some of the stuff in Bologna, and they loved the seven churches of Santo Stefano. Our apartment was filthy, but they made do and stayed on Friday. They ended up going to Florence the next day, and Venice on Sunday, but it was good to see them. Alex hung back with me on Saturday, and we got a chance to go up to San Luca, which is a huge church that overlooks the city of Bologna on a hill. There were 666 gates up to the top, and it was a pretty long hike. It was worth it though, because the church is beautiful. Afterward, we went to this great Indian restaurant, which was a nice change of pace from Italian food. I'll definitely be eating more Indian food in the future. All in all, it was a great weekend and it was good to see Alex and Kira and Kac.

Tonight, I'm going off with my school for dinner to learn how to make pasta, then there's a party in the giardini (park). In the morning, it's off to Munich to meet Petey- which is my last real travel in Europe and it's definitely going to be a great time. Land of the wheat beer and Bavarian pretzel- I can't wait!

P.S.- Proud day to be an American with the death of Osama, I guess after 10 long years. It'll be interesting to see what, if any, effect this has on our situation in the Middle East.

London

Time to update the blog again. Can't believe how fast the time is starting to fly by, but my internship is finally all set up for the summer so the only thing I have left to do is kick back and relax (and maybe study a couple of times a month). This week has been absolutely crazy, and I have a little cold as a result but its been worth it.

On Wednesday I finally got to go up to London and visit Stengel. Overall, it was a great time although I could have spent a few more days there. Unfortunately, Bry had to leave to go back to the States on Saturday, but we got a lot of cool stuff in still. My flight touched down around noon, but for some reason my phone wouldn't make calls so it was a nightmare to get hold of Steng and Pete. I spent about 10 bucks just making calls at a pay phone, but I finally got in touch with Pete and hopped on a train. London is crazy expensive. I probably spent about 50 bucks before I even left the airport just between phone calls and my train ticket. I had to go there, though, so I really didn't have a choice. My train got in around 1 PM in the city center, and Pete was waiting for me at the station. We took a really short tour around, and we went to the top of a shopping center for a good view by St. Paul's Church (I believe) in order to save the 12 pounds it would have cost to actually climb to the top. After that, I got a good look at the "River Thames" and most of the famous sites, like the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge which actually isn't very cool, and of course Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Also, the London Eye was right in the area. I met up with Steng finally around 4 after braving the Tube on my own, and we got right to work. This weekend in London was probably the least aggressive trip I've had in terms of seeing all the tourist spots, but it was good to just kind of relax in an English speaking country for a bit. In fact, the English kind of threw me off- it felt like I was halfway home and it didn't really hit me that I had just seen London until I got on the plane to leave. Bry and I just hung out and caught up a bit in his flat, which is just one floor of a really nice house in the Kensington-Chelsea area, one of the most upscale areas in the whole city. I laughed because the first thing I saw when I got out of the tube station was a KFC. We went to a pub, almost immediately of course. It was good to finally be able to get some good beers, and we went to a kind of chain pub where I had the obligatory fish n' chips. It was good, really, but not unlike anything you can get in America. I was beat, so we just hung out a bit more before going to the same pub to watch a soccer match. I was so tired that I just passed out around 10, and that was my night.

The next day, we decided to save some of the sites for when Bryan's friends came to visit from Penn State on Friday, so we grabbed an English breakfast which was eggs, "bacon", mushrooms, peppers, beans, sausage, and coffee. It was beautiful, the first real breakfast I'd had in a long time. Italians just eat pastries or some crap all the time. We took the tube over to the British Military Museum, and even though we had only planned to spend an hour or so there, we ended up staying for most of the day. There were so many cool exhibits and old military equipment from WWI and WWII, on top of a lot of Nazi memorabilia. I'm pretty fascinated with all that stuff, so it was great. There was also a big section for the Holocaust, which was pretty sobering. Afterward, we went to the Natural History Museum, which was pretty much exactly like the one in DC, so it was ok but we both kind of decided we were a bit to old for it...dinosaurs just don't do it anymore. Before we knew it, 6 hours had passed, so we headed back in order to meet Bryan's friends coming in from the airport. First, though, we stopped at the local market and picked up some cider. They had a good deal where we could get a lot of beer or cider for not much money, which we abused constantly throughout the weekend. We went back to his apartment, had some beers/cider, and watched this hilarious British comic named Eddie Izzard on Bry's computer for a bit...his jokes about WWII went hand-in-hand with our day to that point. The girls finally got in and we went to a pretty good Thai restaurant for dinner. It was liberating to be in London because the food is so notoriously bad outside of the couple of traditional English things that I tried. I didn't feel guilty eating foreign food for once. If I go to a McDonald's in Bologna I always feel like I should go to confession or something. After the restaurant, we went into Chinatown to a pub, where we got to meet up with Kyle Pettigrove, who is studying in London as well. The pub was huge, and there was a big music area upstairs with a band. I made the offhanded comment "Who's up there MGMT or what?" We got upstairs and the band was absolutely drilling "Time to Pretend." They were sick. If I had chosen to study in London I definitely would have gotten into the music scene a bit, since all of my favorite bands are British anyway. We left after a while, took a peak at Trafalgar Square, then headed back to Steng's flat to watch the Flyers. I made it about 10 minutes into the game before falling asleep on top of an exercise ball. I was still exhausted from Napoli, and now I'm still exhausted from London.

The next day, we were out of the apartment by 10 and got to see some of the really major sites. We started off with the Tower of London. It was 17 pounds to get in (STIFF) but it was still really worth it. There was a great view of the tower bridge, and there was so much history in the castle. We started on a tour with a Yeoman Warder, who was hilariously dressed in periodic clothing and kept calling people in the group out, but we decided to wander around a bit. We saw the crown jewels, which was really, really cool. I can pretty much say with confidence that those crowns are worth more than my life, and I'm pretty sure the British government sees it that way too. I had this weird urge to punch the glass in and try to make a run for it with some of the jewels the whole time, but I kept myself under control. One thing I couldn't understand is how the people of England continue to support their leader spending money so haphazardly. If our President had a crown at this point it would probably be stripped down to one of those Burger King crowns, but I guess the tradition is so strong in England that people don't even think twice about how the royal family spends money. Prince William's wedding is coming up, I think, so all around the city they were getting ready to shut everything down for the big day. I'm really surprised that the whole royalty thing still exists in this day and age. I guess this whole time I had been thinking it was a lot more symbolic. Oh well. Anyway, after the crown jewels, we went up a tower which was set up as an exhibit of all the old armor and stuff, which was really cool. They had the tallest and shortest suits of armor in the world set up right next to each other, along with all these medieval weapons- the good stuff. After the Tower of London, we headed into Westminster, which is where most of the more famous sites are. We took a look at Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the Supreme Court (which for some reason has a statue of Abraham Lincoln outside of it). Big Ben, and almost went on the London Eye, but decided against it. We took a little walk through a park, and finally saw Buckingham Palace. The guards were waiting outside wearing their silly-ass hats. Apparently just this past week one of them finally snapped and slapped a woman across the face, so let that be a warning. After we said hi to the queen, we headed back to Steng's place, and that was pretty much it because Bry had to pack for the next day. Truth be told, we were all exhausted anyway. We did, however, get KFC for lunch- a nice little slice of America pie, and Bry said bye to the owner of the local kebab place, who he had gotten to know pretty well. The dude offered Bryan anything he wanted to eat or drink, and without looking Bry grabbed this weird Turkish drinking yogurt, which was unflavored liquidy yogurt that you're supposed to drink when it's hot out. What the HELL Steng. It was disgusting, so we poured it all out on top of all the shoes and boxes that kids left outside his flat. So yeah, we sent Steng off to America with a showing of Team America:World Police. I had bought a couple of energy drinks because my flight was at 7, and I already knew I wouldn't get to go to sleep. I got destroyed by London transportation, definitely my number one expense. I had to get a bus at 2:30 in the morning to take me to the airport, so I left Bry's apartment at 1, missed the only bus that was coming for a half hour because I was so confused by the street directions, ran back to his flat and was literally throwing rocks against his window and screaming for him to come out. I was just about to try to break into his flat after about 15 minutes of that before he finally came out. I ended up catching a taxi, which blew my mind because they drive on the right (wrong) side of the car and the left side of the road. In fact, the entire weekend, sometimes I would just freak out and literally think cars were going without anyone in the driver's seat before I collected myself and got it together. The taxi ride was like 25 pounds or something outrageous like that, but I finally got to my airport bus, cranked up the Pink Floyd, and said goodbye to London. I got to Stansted around 3:45 AM, and stuck it out in the airport for the next 3 hours, which felt like an eternity. I finally caught my plane at 7. If you don't know already, RyanAir is freaking crazy. It's not for old people or people who enjoy personal space, or just feeling safe in general. It IS extremely cheap, though. I didn't mind it too much because I didn't fit into any of those previously stated categories. I slept for most of the 2 hours on the plane, but I was awake for the Alps, which are absolutely ridiculous. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen, and I'm pretty upset that I had stowed my camera in the overhead storage. I finally got back to my apartment at 11 (after taking another bus) and did nothing all day.

I ended up going to a party that started at 8 for a bunch of the Erasmus kids at Gilly's apartment (my Australian friend with the great drinking songs), after getting held up when Gomes and I got lost in Bologna somehow. Our original bus shut down, some of the streets ended up being blocked, and finally when we got off the bus we had no idea where we were going for like 30 minutes. We finally got there and had a nice time, everyone brought food or wine. I ended up going out to a club until an ungodly hour, so I basically pulled 2 all nighters in a row. Yeah Ma, I am sick now- you were right...didn't sleep and now I'm sick. Truth is, I don't really care because I'm having the greatest spring break of my life. Umberto (my Italian buddy) has been staying with us for a bit after his trip with my roommates to Barcelona, and tomorrow I'm going back with him to his place for a couple of days near Pescera. After that, its off to Rome to meet Alex for a couple of hours, and then all the way up to the Cinque Terre for Easter. Going back to class is going to be miserable.

Love you all, HAPPY EASTER, and hopefully I will be able to get a nice update of my trip in next week.

Can't believe its already been a week since I landed in London almost...I'm living in a time warp, except really, really fast.

Napoli

Admittedly, I was a little nervous going into this trip not really knowing anyone, but I can honestly say that it turned out to be one of the best, if not the best trip of my life. I went through the Erasmus organization that plans events for exchange students all across Europe, and I really wish that I had started going to Erasmus events outside of clubs much earlier. I had a great time, met a TON of new people, and saw probably my favorite city in Italy so far- all for under 200 euros for 4 days. It really turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I had fun from the time we left until the time we pulled into Bologna, straight through.

I left on Wednesday night around 11:30, and my roommates were being pretty loud at the time. I actually passed the police on my way down as they were heading up to my apartment, but from what I heard everything turned out ok. I guess our neighbors had finally had it with our apartment, and I can't really blame them. I'm actually pretty glad that its going to be a lot quieter around here at night.

The bus to Napoli left a little past midnight, and when I got on there were about 4 different languages being spoken, but no English. I really thought it was going to be a long trip at that point and that it would be tough to meet any new people, but I ended up sitting next to a Brazilian kid named Joao who had actually lived in America for a little bit, so the bus ride turned out fine. I barely slept, though, maybe only for 3 out of the 9 hours that we were on the bus, but what are you gonna do? We got into Napoli around 9, checked into the hostel in a hurry, and then started touring the city right away. The first thing I noticed about Napoli was how dirty it was. Trash was piled up everywhere, and people were driving like maniacs. It's really unbelievably different than anything we have in the States, but at the same time its a beautiful place. You can see Mount Vesuvius in the distance, and the whole city is situated on a hill right on the water. One of the first things we saw was a group of fishermen selling their catch to the locals right alongshore, and it was the first time I've ever seen a live octopus. I didn't end up trying any, and now I don't know that I will...they're a pretty creepy looking animal. Afterward, we checked out an old castle, called Castello del'Uovo, which was built right on top of the water. There were some great views of the city and Vesuvius, and I started to meet some more people even though until then I had pretty much just been keeping to myself. I can't say enough how nice all of these kids were. Maybe it was just because we were all in the same boat studying in Bologna, or maybe its just how Europeans are-I can't really say. What I can say though is that I still have yet to meet someone throughout my whole time in Europe who was anything less than friendly. By the end, I realized that I actually have a lot more in common with these kids from all different countries than I do with most of the Dickinson kids studying here. We headed into the main square of Naples and I got some fast food type pizza that actually turned out to be pretty good. I made the choice early to save time and money on food and enjoy the sites instead, which you just have to do sometimes for a better experience overall. I do regret not eating any seafood or a ton of Naples pizza (it's where pizza was invented), but that's life I guess. After lunch, we walked through a pretty cool mall that was outside but had a giant awning for a roof, then up to a big castle with one of the best views I've ever seen. To get up there we had to take a lift which I imagine is pretty similar to Pittsburgh's, although I've never been. You could see the entire city, and it was so high that huge boats looked tiny. We had to wait about 2 hours for it to open- typical Italy- but I got to know more people in the meantime and I needed a break so it worked out. I could have stayed up at the castle all day, but we left and walked to the main church of Naples, and took in the sights of the Spanish quarter- a little taste of life in Naples. It was really and truly crazy. The people there definitely have a few screws loose. The streets were PACKED, but people kept trying to drive through anyway. Horns were going off everywhere, and it was just pure chaos. I kept making the joke that of course the people of Napoli were crazy- they built their city under a live volcano- that's right Vesuvius is still active. Unreal. It was pretty late, so we headed back toward the train. In Italy you learn pretty quickly that paying for transportation is basically optional if they don't make you use a ticket right away to get into the station, so we all stamped our old tickets and hopped on the train. We were riding along for a couple of stops with no problems, but after a while out of the corner of my eye I saw a man in a green suit in the back, followed by a bunch of Spanish Eramsus kids getting up and moving to the front. Bear in mind that there were about 100 of us on the train, and literally nobody paid. It became a mad dash to get to the front of the train so he couldn't check our tickets because they can actually take you to jail if you don't pay, even though its usually just a pretty big fine. I tried to stay in the middle of the crowd- harder to check the ticket- but I almost got snagged. The inspector-guy ended up leaving the train and trying to come in a door up front because it was pretty obvious that we were all trying to avoid him. He ran on the train yelling out "Bigliette! Tickets!" and pointed right at me, but I pulled the old "I don't speak Italian" card and ran to the back. Nobody ended up getting caught, so I'd say we did a pretty good job. We got our rooms when we got back to the hostel, and I ended up staying with a really great group of guys. There were two kids from Portugal, both named Andre, that I really hit it off with, two Germans, one named Sebastian and the other Marc, and finally an Argentinan kid named Humberto. Gomes, Andre, Marc, and Sebastian all spoke English pretty fluently so I ended up spending the most time with them. Marc kind of had his own thing going on, but I really hit it off with the other three, and we're even going to meet up in Bologna now. It was cool to be staying with people from so many different walks of life and areas of study- the whole weekend ended up being one big cultural exchange basically. There were people from Russia, Romania, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, Italy of course, and probably a lot more but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. All 150 of us on the trip were supposed to get the "real" Napoli pizza at a place right next to our hostel, which had a great location by the way. We were right outside the main center, and actually right next to Virgil's tomb according to a sign, but I never got the chance to see the actual tomb. We also had a view of Vesuvius and the waterfront, which was truly beautiful. Anyway, the pizza place was PACKED, and we knew they were overwhelmed because people weren't even finished when they came and took the dishes. The pizza was good- very simple- just a bit of sauce and cheese with a leaf of basil on top, but I've actually had better in Bologna, I knew they had rushed it though, and I doubt I would be saying the same thing if I had gone on my own on a normal night when they could have a chance at the restaurant to keep the pizza in the oven as long as the needed to. Regardless, now I can say I've had the original pizza, so its just another feather in my cap from my time here in Italy. Afterward, we go a couple of beers at a small shop next door, and spent the night just hanging out on the deck of the hostel playing foosball and speaking in everyone's common language of Italian.

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hostel and left at 9 for Vesuvius. I have to give some respect to the bus driver, who did an amazing job driving us up these tight windy roads for about 40 minutes to the top. I thought we were going to hit something for sure about 8 different times, but we never did. I forgot to mention that the bus was a double-decker to boot, so the guy really did a heck of a job. Even though the bus got us pretty close to the top it was still a steep 45 minute climb to the very top. We had a tour guide speaking in Italian, so I did miss some things, but what I did pick up is that Vesuvius is still active. It erupted in the 40s, and don't quote me on this but I think the 70s as well. She said the next eruption is going to be an explosive one that is going to blow material 30 km in the air- I believe...I can't be sure though because my Italian is still kind of shaky. For some reason, there were Americans absolutely everywhere. A Spanish kid wanted me to help him meet some American girls so I ended up talking to a group of kids from Duquesne, however that's spelled, and it made me realize how great of an experience I'm getting. I'm a different kind of dude, I realize that, so my way of thinking doesn't really lend itself to being the "typical American tourist" in the first place, but I literally had a girl ask me if we were in Naples at the top of Mount Vesuvius. I'm glad I'm not studying in Florence or Rome- I might have gotten into a fistfight by now. After that, we headed to Pompeii. Right by the ancient ruins, there were these vendors selling lemons that were literally the size of my head. I bought a huge orange that was about half that size for a euro, and that ended up being lunch. After about an hour, we headed into the ruins which were unbelievably well preserved. In Rome, its sometimes hard to picture the daily life in your head because a lot of things are really broken down, but in Pompeii a lot of the original paint is still on the walls. Our guide was pretty funny, at least from what I could understand in Italian. I'm finding that I can understand a lot more than I can actually say- but I'm definitely better off than if I stayed in the States just going to class. There were a lot of cool things in Pompeii, but I'm pretty sure we got the custom college kid tour that grandma won't get because I saw at least 10 drawings of penises and a whorehouse. There was even a carving in the street of a penis that pointed the Pompeiians to the whorehouse. The guide made sure we saw that, of course. There was also a cool arena, and a smaller one where they had concerts that they also used to decide whether a gladiator should live or die. Gladiator fights weren't just limited to Rome, as I'm coming to learn. The city was so well preserved because it was buried under so much ash all these years. They actually didn't discover it until fairly recently, but it is true that you can see bodies that were preserved by the ash, and there will be a few pictures of that on Facebook. Of course, you get a great view of Mount Vesuvius in the background. Apparently the reason that people don't stay away from the volcano is because the soil it produces makes the area very fertile, or something along those lines. Crazy Italians, that's all I have to say. After Pompeii, we went to a grocery store, then headed back to the hostel for dinner, which was a little pasta and meat- not bad for how little I paid. That night, there was a party in the parking lot with sangria. Everyone got to know each other a lot better. The only other American on the whole trip was a girl from North Carolina who goes to Providence, and we ended up teaching all the European kids how to play flip cup. It was pretty funny, but I think they ended up liking it. Our friends downstairs in Bologna love to play beer pong- they always ask us to play. I was really surprised at how accepting of Americans people were, but this weekend I really ended up shedding any remaining stereotypes that I was still holding on to. I've really learned to accept all different kinds of lifestyles because at the end of the day people are just people. Everyone wants and needs the same basic things so what does it matter who you hang out with, how you speak, or how you dress? We all come from the same place and end up in the same place. It's better to accept people because of what you have in common rather than focus on differences. Life's too short to label people, and if you waste your time doing that you can really miss out. I've really changed my opinion on a lot of things over here, so in a way I guess I can say that this trip has changed me as a person. After a little too much sangria, mostly thanks to an Australian girl's song about "Brother Mike drinking piss all night," I got to bed at about 1:30- then woke up 5 hours later.

Capri- I don't know if there are even words to describe it. I'm basically wasting everyone's time by trying but at the very least I'll be able to remember that even for just one day in my life I saw something so beautiful that words literally can't describe it. It's a small island with huge white cliffs, a nice little town in the center- this really is a waste as I'm typing it. The pictures can't even do it justice. The bluest water I've ever seen. We hiked around looking for the beach for about 2 hours, but the hike was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. We were on top of these giant cliffs on a really dangerous trail. I kept pretending to puke over the side of the cliff because it was just too much beauty to handle, and making the joke that if we hiked a little too far we'd run into God. If God moved from heaven to Capri in a couple of years I wouldn't be shocked. There was a dead rat on one of the trails, and we joked that he rounded a corner, saw the cliffs and the water, and got so overwhelmed that he died. That might have actually been the way that he went. We got a little lost, but ended up finding the beach, which was pretty much just concrete built on top of rocks- it didn't matter though, it was one of the greatest places I've ever seen. It took me a while to jump in, and the water was so cold that it took my breath away but I was determined to swim in the Mediterranean (it was actually in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which is a subdvision, but who's counting). My skin was literally burning, but it was still cool because we were floating in water that was at least 25-30 feet deep. It wasn't hard to float, though, because the water was really a lot more salty than I'm used to. After the beach, we went on a boat tour around the island. It was really cool. We saw goats climbing on the rocks, plenty of natural coves, grottos, arcs, and Georgio Armani's summer home. When we finally got back I ended up crushing a jar of Nutella on the street- so if I ever make it back to Capri I have to do that for good luck, I think. We took the boat to Napoli, which took about an hour, then it was a similar dinner at the hostel, and back outside with a few beers to enjoy our last night together. We ended up playing French and Spanish drinking games, then foosball- which I actually learned how to play and ended up beating the European kids who had crushed me so bad on the first night. We stayed up probably later than we should have, but I figured I was having so much fun that I can just sleep when I'm dead.

(P.S. I took a break from writing this to get some groceries, and when I came back there was an e-mail about a wall that fell in Capri a couple of hours that we left on a popular tourist street. They're afraid of landslides too- see how lucky I've gotten since I came to Europe?)

On Sunday, we packed everything up in the morning and headed out of the hostel. Everyone was bone tired, but we still had a great day. We went to the original palace of the Kingdom of Italy, which was built in the 1860's I'm pretty sure, right after the unification. The palace was okay- I can't believe I'm saying this because in January I would have been freaking out, but I kind of feel like once you see a palace you've seen them all. I'm also a little tired of seeing churches- the Vatican ruined every other church for me. Right now I'm more interested in seeing nature. There was plenty of that at the palace, and it had a huge garden that was probably about two or three times the size of the summer palace in Vienna. There was this really cool waterfall at the very end of the garden, but it was so far away that at first we thought it was a huge monument or staircase. It ended up taking us about 40 minutes just to walk from one end of the garden to the other, and it was a nice way to unwind from the trip and get ready to head back to Bologna.

The bus ride back itself was actually really fun, and the 9 hours definitely flew by. We watched a nice little Italian movie called My Name is Tannino, which I actually saw before as one of the first things I did in Bologna. If you get the chance to watch it, I'd recommend it because number 1- there's gratuitous amounts of Rachel McAdams, and secondly its a great movie for insight on how Europeans stereotype Americans. It was really funny to see it from the other side- and of course I lied to everyone on the bus and told them the movie was spot-on accurate. Afterward, we played some crazy European drinking game that was kind of like B.S. but with wine, and the entire back of the bus had a summer-camp style singing contest, which turned out to be hilarious. They made me sing American songs by myself, of course. We finally got into Bologna around 11 o'clock, and I headed out with Gomes and Andre for a late night pizza. I actually ended up going out with them the next night to a bar with most of the kids from the trip so overall I made some great new friends, saw my new favorite city in Italy, and really right now I'm having an absolute blast. I really don't want to leave here in a month and a half (I can't believe how fast its going by) and I'm thinking very seriously about returning for a graduate degree and to become fluent in Italian- there's no way that won't be useful in my life (kidding). All jokes aside, I'm just absolutely crushing stereotypes of people over here, and I'm really learning to just judge people one at a time- or to just not judge anyone at all. Everyone's been so friendly here, and I love the Italian culture. I really think I'm Italian at heart because I'm late everywhere I go, and that's generally accepted. What drives Petey nuts at home (me calling to hang out and then showing up 2 hours later) is what everyone does- which is fantastic. My ADD is really being nurtured here. Anyway, so far so good for spring break. I had a great day in the gardens and its off to London tomorrow- my first flight in Europe believe it or not. I'll show em how a Yank drinks a pint! Just kidding MOM. (Had her fooled for a second there, but no really I'm going to ingest alcoholic beverages at some point with Shteng so expect a Hangover-esque themed blog next week.







Still kidding Mom. LOVE YOU!

Petey visits Bologna and Venezia

It's been a very short week, but I'm cutting out of class early to get going on my spring break. I'm leaving tonight at midnight for a trip to Naples with the exchange student program in Bologna. I'll basically be one of the only Americans on the trip, so it should be one of the craziest experiences of my life. Hopefully I'll get the chance to check out the beach while I'm there, but there's plenty of good stuff planned, all for a ridiculously cheap price. Even though I won't know anyone, the chance to see Pompeii and Naples for so cheap was too good to pass up.

Since I don't have too much time to get a lot down on this blog, I'm going to have to rush through a lot of the sites that Pete and I saw in Bologna and Venice. The good news is I've already written a ton about both places in my blog before, so if you're still curious about Venice or Bologna you can find a lot in my earlier posts. Pete got in Thursday morning around 5 AM, and even though I had only slept for an hour I took him right to Piazza Maggiore as soon as he got off the train. It was really nice to see Bologna all lit up, but we were really the only people walking around, so it was a cool experience. We slept for a little bit, but I had a field trip for school at 11:30. Pete decided he wanted to go, and I didn't think they would let him, but I asked anyway and my professors were nice enough to let him come. All he had to do was pay for lunch. We went to a little town called Fiorlimpopoli, where there was a museum dedicated to a food author that we have been studying in class. It was a small museum, and pretty boring really, but it was attached to a restaurant and cooking school where we had lunch. Lunch was amazing. They gave us barley soup, a really great artichoke-quiche type dish, veal, and ravioli- which were much different than we eat in the U.S. It wasn't filled with cheese quite so much as it would be in America, but it was still great. Lunch was pretty fancy, and it ended up costing Pete about 30 bucks, but it was his first meal in Italy and definitely one of the best meals I've eaten since I've been here. After Fioirlimpopoli, we rode the bus to a tiny little town way out in the country called Dozza to go to an Enoteca, which is a wine house basically. It was in this cool old castle, and the manager gave us a little overview of wine in Italy. The wine there was specific to the Emilia-Romagna region, and I ended up getting a nice bottle of white wine from Bologna and a dessert wine, which is really sweet, almost like juice, but has a much lower alcohol content. It was a long day, and we didn't get back until around 7, but we still managed to go out and get a pizza at the place right behind my apartment, called Il Valerio. It's the best pizza in Bologna, I think, and Pete was really eating well while he was here. We ended up eating it on the roof of my apartment, which was a great view of the city, and we finished the wine I bought, of course. I just discovered the roof this past week, but it's definitely one of my favorite places to hang out now. We went to bed fairly early because we wanted to catch the train to Venice as early as possible in the morning.

The next morning, we got up, made some breakfast, and hopped right on the 9 o'clock train to Venice, which is definitely my favorite city in Italy. I had a lot more time to see everything I wanted to this time around. St. Mark's Basilica was open, and we were able to get right in without much of a line. The entire interior of the church is covered in gold, which is a testament to Venice's wealth from its days as the main trade center of Europe. The basilica was actually built in the 11th century as the Doge's personal church, and St. Mark is buried inside. This country is just outrageous. Afterward, we got some gelatto and just hung out right on the water for a bit, before we just walked all around the city getting lost. We found a really cool park with a hilarious statue of, don't quote me. but I think it was Alexander the Great- and he looked like he was holding a beer. I can't stress enough how amazing Venice is. If you ever go to Italy, put that right on the top of your list, almost even before Rome. It's just beautiful there. We spent an hour or two just getting lost in the city and checking out all the cool stores and canals. We also got to see the first ever coffee house in Europe, which I had just learned about last week, but we didn't go inside because a cup of coffee was something like 9 euros. I guess when you're the original coffee house you can charge whatever you want, but I'm starting to try to pay attention to my budget. We did, however, pay the 8 euros to go to the top of the tower in Piazza San Marco, and you could see everything. It was really cool, and I have some great pictures from up there if you want to check them out on my Facebook. Afterward, we just kind of hung out before catching the train at 7. I was sad to leave Venice, since I'll probably never get the chance to go back again, but with my limited time in Italy I feel like I saw enough to feel satisfied. We got back into Bologna around 9 and immediately went out to my favorite Chinese place. The lady knows me by now. I'm actually kind of a regular at a few places where the people recognize me, so that's pretty cool and it makes Bologna feel a bit more like home. After dinner, we tried to go out to a club that was like a half hour walk away outside of the city center, but we failed miserably because it was death metal night or something like that. So, we decided to just head back and go to sleep.

We woke up around 11 the next morning, and I really wanted to show Pete all of the important stuff in Bologna. Pete took his first picture of the day, slipped, and broke his camera, so he has nothing to show for his trip HAHA. It was hilarious. After that debacle, we went over to the famous two towers, and climbed the taller one. It was pretty ridiculous. It's 100 feet taller than the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, and it was built in the early 1100's. It's exactly 318 feet high, and the steps on the inside are made of 200 year old wood- which definitely would not fly in America. I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty unsafe the entire way up, but getting to the top was worth it. It gave me a whole new appreciation for Bologna, and I finally realized what a great city I'm living in because Pete was loving every second of it. The city stretches out as far as the eye can see, and it looks like a million people live here, not just 400,000. I guess Bologna has a lot of connected "suburban" towns that I never knew about. Afterward, I took Pete to get some prosciutto, which he said was one of the best things he's ever eaten, since his favorite food is ham. We toured through the important sites, including the S. Stefano's 7 churches, which was built in the 300's. It was a great day. Before Pete left, we headed out to get dinner at a little cheap, but traditional Bologna restaurant where we both got pasta, and of course more prosciutto. We spent about an hour or so just hanging out in Piazza Maggiore before Pete left at 11:30. All in all, it was definitely a great weekend, and I'm glad Pete enjoyed Italy so much. The next time I see him will be in a month in Munich for Springfest.

I have to get running to get a lot of stuff together before I leave, and I have to tutor some young kids in Italian at 6. After that, spring break here I come.

Roma...and Pigeon Fighting

Ok it's been too long since I've updated this last. I'm uploading pictures to my computer right now from the soccer match, Vienna, and Rome- and there's about 400 new photos. Unfortunately, the past couple of trips I've taken, my camera has died on me within the first day or so, so if you want to see the pictures from the end of those trips they've both uploaded a bunch to Facebook.

I'm sitting here on a ridiculously lazy Friday, and I've done absolutely nothing productive. It's good though because with all the running around I've done and how busy I've been lately sometimes it's kind of nice to take days like this. I'm going to pull a fast one and Tarantino this post, starting with yesterday and move back to my Rome visit. It's been absolutely beautiful in Bologna the past few days...temperature in the mid 70's and not a cloud in the sky. Italians really don't wear shorts, but yesterday I just said screw it and threw a pair on. Apparently it's REALLY weird to wear shorts here. I got to class and one of the Italian kids asked if I had just gotten back from the beach, and my professor was straight up laughing at me...she was wearing a full on sweater. Walked down to Piazza Maggiore after class and some Italian dude was clutching his manpurse and just straight up pointing and laughing at me...irony so thick you can cut it with a knife.

I got a really nice surprise when I finally worked through the raw humiliation of wearing shorts on a beautiful spring day and got back to my apartment. If you're paying attention at all the title should be a great indication of what's coming next. Yep that's right, freaking pigeon sitting in my kitchen eating my leftovers and staring me right in the face, daring me to make the first move. Props to Nick and Brian for leaving all the windows open for 12 hours straight again. I think its important to point out that I recognized that son of a bitch, which leads me to believe that he caught a heaping whiff of my man-musk and took it upon himself to find out where I live, presumably to peck out my eyeballs and proceed to suck my soul out of my cold, dead body. It's probably even more important to mention that the reason I recognized that incarnation of pure evil in bird-form in the first place was because he had one of his legs ripped off. I even thew him a little piece of cracker at the train station when I saw him...and this is how he repays me. I swear, you give a pigeon an inch and they'll take a mile every single time. Anyway, I was faced with two choices...either try to chase the pigeon out of the apartment, and hopefully rip his other leg off in the process, or nurse it back to health and raise it as a member of my own immediate family. Needless to say, I chose the former. First, though, I called Ale up from downstairs to take a picture of the whole ordeal. I rushed around the apartment like a whirling dervish looking for the most ridiculous clothes I could find at the time, with some pretty good success, I might add. I was armed with a broom, Brian's bike helmet (which I have no idea why he felt the need to bring), and sunglasses for that classic 80's look. I had the pigeon trapped in the kitchen alone for about 10 minutes, just to raise the suspense and get him a little nervous. No sooner did Ale poke her head in and say "Aww look he's hurt...he's not gonna do anything" did the demon-possessed winged-rat fly straight toward her head. She screamed and shut the door, leaving me one on one. There was a brief moment where the pigeon (from here on out referred to as "Nubs") settled down, and we had one of those moments from an old western movie, just sizing each other up and wondering who was going to pull the trigger first. I beat ole' Nubsy to the draw, swinging the broom right for his head. He made a valiant charge, but I brushed him aside and managed to wiggle the door to the balcony open. He made one last run at me (Nubs' Last Stand as it will go down in the history books), before I used my last resort intimidation tactic, something which I believe runs all the way back in my blood for generations, no matter how many times my mom has tried (and failed) to convince me that West Virginia fought for the Union in the Civil War: The Rebel Yell. It worked all the way up until April of '65 for Johnny Reb, and you best believe that it worked for me. The pigeon quickly realized it was no match for me, and victory was swift. I could finally start to relax as I watched the pigeon fly out of view, with a string of outrageous obscenities coming from my porch trailing not too far behind it.

Moving on to the second, and probably more important part of this post- my weekend in Rome. Thursday, classes were canceled for the 150th anniversary of Italy, not to mention St. Patty's Day. I hopped on a fast train at about 3 and got into Rome at about 5. Alex came to get me at the train station, and we ate dinner at her host, Donatella's apartment. It was really good, with plenty of much needed vegetables. Since it was St. Patty's, I grabbed a beer at a pizza place nearby after dinner, but it turned out to be some Italian non-alcoholic nonsense. Just a terrible surprise on, as my roommate Nick put it, the HOLIEST OF ALL DAYS. I just ended up going to bed pretty early, and in the morning Alex and I went to her gym for a bit before starting out to see all the sights of Rome. The first thing I noticed was how different everything was than Bologna. The people in Rome all dressed, acted, and spoke differently. It reminded me about how different all the regions in Italy really are, and it got me pretty excited for my Naples trip, since that's really far in the South. The culture there must be completely different than anything I've become used to up in the North. Friday was a great day. We walked all around the city's center, starting near the Vatican, and ending up at the Coliseum. Alex took me through a lot of historical squares. I think part of me expected Rome to be much more modern for some reason, but the actual city itself is pretty indistinguishable from an American city. The only difference is, you can turn around and all of a sudden you're face to face with St. Peter's or some ancient castle. I also thought ruins would be everywhere throughout the city, but that also is not the case. At any rate, we got a handle on the subways and bus system, so getting around turned out to be pretty easy. After a bit, we got to the Pantheon, which was built by the Romans as a temple to all their gods, but was later taken over by the Catholic church. It was a mind blowing building, with a huge dome with a hole in the middle. If it rains, the water goes right into the building. Buried inside the Pantheon were a couple of Italy's first kings, Vittore re Emmanuel II and Umberto I. The famous Renaissance painter Raphael is also buried there, and it was really cool to get to see all their tombs up close. The building itself was constructed in the 1st century, but you would never know it because it is so well preserved. Apparently, they're still not sure how the dome was built, but its still solid. It was cool to think about all the pagan rituals that they must have held in the Pantheon, and was my first taste of ancient Rome really. After the Pantheon, we made our way to the Spanish steps, which to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed by at first. They're just a big stairway leading up from one of Rome's most popular districts for shopping to an old Spanish-style church, which I thought was cooler than the steps. At the top you can get a pretty good view of the city. Afterward, we went into the McDonald's next to the Spanish steps, which was the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen. It looked like the inside of a very nice night club or something...it was just so strange. For the record, it seems like people in Europe eat more McDonald's than we do in America- bunch of hypocrites. We made our way to the Trevi fountain, which is beautiful. It's this massive fountain with water cascading down around a statue of Neptune and a bunch of horses. The legend is that if you throw a coin in the fountain you'll return to Rome in your lifetime, if you throw two in you'll fall in love in Italy, and if you throw three in you'll end up getting married in Rome. I threw one in while Alex took a picture, and while she wasn't looking I threw three more in, so keep your eyes peeled for a post in the future of me taking a spur of the moment trip back to Rome and eloping with an Italian supermodel. After the Trevi fountain, we made our way down to Piazza Venezia, where there's this beautiful white building that houses a lot of government, I believe. It's huge, and apparently was built during the Risorgimento (the unification) of Italy, and the Italians think it's an eyesore. I thought it was awesome, though. Alex told me to take a left by the building, and I had no idea where we were going. All of a sudden, about 600 yards away there was the Coliseum right there, and to my right was the old Roman forum: the ancient ruins. I was like a little kid. All those years of studying the Romans, and it was right there in front of my face. I liked the Coliseum the best, but everything was closed so we couldn't go in right away. The Coliseum is almost as big as any stadium I've seen, and they built it almost 2,000 years ago. It sat 50,000 people. Just let that sink in. Also, it made me laugh. In America, owners are complaining and asking for city funds to help build a new stadium when the one they have is 20 years old. I wonder if anyone ever tried to pull that move and get a new Coliseum in ancient Rome. By that time it was pretty late, so Alex and I went to dinner at Donatella's favorite restaurant in Rome, and I had the best pizza of my life, by default with prosciutto, artichokes, olives, and an egg. It wasn't far and away the best pizza I'd ever had or anything like that, but it was still the best so I have to mention it. After dinner, there was this really cool bar next door, so I went in and got myself a nice German helles (thanks for making me a beer nerd Pete, I was content to drink Natty like everyone else before you ruined me- now I can't go back). That was it for the night. Saturday, we headed down to go inside the Coliseum and check out the Roman forum. We started up on Palantine hill, where the emperors built their palaces, for the most part. They were in pretty bad shape, so it was hard to get a good idea of how majestic they once were. Alex said that the pope had taken all the marble from the ancient ruins to build St. Peter's in the 1500's, so that didn't help. At the top of the hill, there was also a building left over from the Italy's fascist days, which was pretty cool to see. The hill was absolutely beautiful, though. I immediately understood why even in ancient mythology, Rome's area was viewed in a similar light to Canaan in the Bible. The weather was excellent, and it was just gorgeous. You could tell there was just something different about this place. It was absolutely beautiful, and mind blowing knowing that I was walking in the same area that Caesar, Nero, and of course Maximus once did (okay the last one isn't real, but Gladiator is a heck of a movie). The Roman forum was really the area of all the broken columns. In fact, some columns are the last remains of buildings. It was all built on a hill, and it was just really humbling to see. To actually be there, it made me think about civilization as we know it, and how different it could have been if the Romans had never come into power. It also made me realize that these people were brilliant, brilliant minds, building things and coming up with ideas that we would struggle to do even today. It's no wonder that this city was once the center of the entire world. A lot of our ideas and culture relates directly back to the Romans, 2,000+ years ago. It really made me realize what a small piece of the puzzle I am. The Coliseum did nothing to relieve me of that feeling. It was just so big, and the fact that it was so old just added to it. It's crumbling, and the floor is gone in the center, but you could almost see the gladiators doing battle in the middle of the arena, or a chariot race going around the outside. It made me realize that Romans weren't very much different from us today in the grand scheme of things. Fashion and architecture might change, and new ideas become more popular over time until they are accepted as fact, but in the end people will always be people. If there's one thing that I can take away from my time here in Italy, it is that exact lesson. There's no way to explain what makes people tick, except maybe how they and their ancestors have had to survive given their position in geography. That's it. That's all it boils down to in determining how cultures develop. It's all determined by the measures the earliest ancestors of a civilization take for survival. That's what makes Italians tick, that's why they eat what they eat. We never really had to deal with that in America, which is why that concept might sound strange or foreign. It's just a good thought at the end of the day to remember that people everywhere aren't so different. We all need to do the same things on a daily basis to survive, and we all have the same basic wants and needs. I think that this trip has made me much more accepting of people, all kinds. Well, enough of the philosophizing. After all the sightseeing, Alex and I went for a run in the beautiful park right next to her apartment, since the gym was closed. It's the biggest park in Rome, and there's all these statues and even a huge old mansion that some fascists lived in during WWII. It got pretty dark, and I tried to act tough but really I was crapping my pants that some homeless guy was going to jump us and stick me in the neck with a hypodermic needle. We made it out okay, though. After the run, Alex and I went to this piazza in the center that was absolutely jumping with college kids, and probably a lot that were younger. It was great. Rome parties out in the open at night, which I thought was really cool. We grabbed a panino at Alex's favorite place, and it was amazing...almost made me stop missing WaWa- for a second at least. We walked by the Trevi fountain again to see it at night, and I threw in a couple more coins, just for good measure. Seriously, expect me to have some weird kind of Mormon thing going with a fleet of Italian chicks when I get back home, all thanks to the fountain. Afterwards, we went back to relax on the Spanish steps, where I snuck into the fountain for a picture. You can see it on my Facebook, but there's a picture of me actually standing inside the fountain. I guess the cops were too busy trying to control the street vendors. Speaking of which, those are some wiley bastards, excuse my language, but you'll see why in a second. Alex and I were just sitting on the steps, minding our business, taking in the sights, when a guy selling roses walked up to us. I always got frustrated when Alex would be a little too mean to those guys, because they can't be making much money selling crap on the street. I had always kind of respected them for doing such a hard thing all day...selling absolute crap to tourists who don't want it in the first place. This guy changed all of that. I will never acknowledge another vendor/beggar (which is what they really are) in Italy again. This guy came up and saying how pretty Alex was and all that, just trying to get us to bite. I waved him on, but then he kind of forced this rose on Alex using broken English, saying it was free. Out of the corner of his mouth he turned to me and said "Hey give me a little money." I reached into my pocket, thinking I had a few euros to give the guy, but all I had was 50 cents. He tried to do some weird half-ass hand-off type thing, but when he saw how much I had given him he started raising a scene, saying stuff to Alex. I didn't get into it with him or anything, but I handed the rose and made him give me my money back. As he was walking away he turned to Alex and said something like, "Ohhh you like-a free huh?" I'm not even sure what he was trying to say, but hey pal, don't go telling the girl you're giving her a rose for free-which I thought was weird in the first place, and then bitch about it when the guy you're asking for it has nothing in his pockets. Never again will I even acknowledge one of those bums. Usually I just say no thank you politely and move on, but that guy was a real bum.

Sunday was my last day, and we dedicated it to seeing the Vatican, although the museum (and Sistine Chapel) were closed all weekend. I really might end up going back to Rome for a day at least at some point in order to see the museum. Before we went, Donatella ended up making me a huge lunch of pasta and turkey. She usually isn't supposed to make food outside of cooking Alex dinner 3 times a week, so I was really appreciative. I think I charmed her though, Alex said she really liked me. I guess there's just something about my face that makes Italian ladies want to feed me. We waited for a bus back to St. Peter's for about 45 minutes, but I got a ton of candy at a place right next to the bus stop and watched an Italian dude absolutely flip out on the cashier, so it was pretty cool as far as 45 minute waits for a bus are concerned. We caught the bus, and it drove right past this lookout point where you could literally see the entire city of Rome. It was beautiful. I would have taken pictures, but my camera already ran out of batteries, so apologies for not having any pictures of the view or the basilica. Anyway, we got to the basilica, and technically my 3rd country in Europe. All you have to do is go through a metal detector to get into the Vatican. I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was going to be a hilarious little city of clergymen, but it was really just a big church and not much else. I wanted to get some currency, but I couldn't even do that. The basilica itself is so hard to describe. I think it might be impossible to describe, at least with me not sitting in front of this computer screen for another two hours. The inside is covered with beautiful paintings, Michelangelo's "La Pieta" (a sculpture of Jesus after his death), and pure gold. It's literally the biggest church in the world, and stars on the floor mark off where other major basilicas end. I'm proud to say Bologna's held its own. The church is so massive that they paid attention to the perspective presented by the art. All the works in the back are huge, to make them appear closer than they actually are. The same goes for the statues. I'm going to go ahead and say it didn't really help. The altar looks like heaven itself. There are a few popes' bodies on display right in the church, including one who was incorrupt (didn't decompose). The ceiling is so high, the church is just so massive. For better or worse, it's a giant demonstration of the power of the Catholic church. I kind of got the feeling that the basilica was more of a testament to the authority of the church than a means to worship God, which is possible because it began construction during a pretty corrupt period in the Church's history. It was still a spectacle to see, at least. It seemed like when they built it they were trying to outdo heaven itself...and they might have succeeded. I had the privilege of being present during a mass, even though we couldn't get very close. Even though I could only understand a few words here and there, the choir sang for about 20 minutes straight in a particular chant, and it sounded like the angels singing themselves. I zoned out for almost the entire time, just thinking about God and my life, and a whole bunch of things. It was a beautiful moment and for a while I felt very close to God, which perhaps is the purpose of the all the grandeur of the Church. Here's a sidenote: according to Alex, St. Peter's is home to a couple of pretty neat relics, I guess, if you're into that kind of thing. One is a piece of the actual cross and the other is a veil that Jesus wiped his face with on the way to his crucifixion. I don't know if I really believe that the Church got its hands on those items, but I guess if there's any city that would have those things it would be Rome, since they were behind that whole mess in the first place. St. Peter's alone is worth the trip to Rome, if you're ever in Europe. The ancient ruins kind of help too. Along the same vein, seeing Rome was almost worth my entire trip to Europe, so if you ever get the chance to go, do it no questions asked. Anyway, after that I headed on my train, which ironically was the same exact train that I took to get to Wien the weekend before (train 235), and the train that Pete will take to get back this weekend. It took about 4 hours, but I was back in Bologna safe and sound.

It's a big week coming up. I have a midterm, and Pete's coming in on Friday at 5 AM (Train 234 of course, the one I took). We're going to do some pretty cool stuff, and maybe even go to Venice. Keep watching for new posts, and have a good week everyone.