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.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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.
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.
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