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
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
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.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
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
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
Monday, May 9, 2011
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.
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.
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