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10/30/06 |
     
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This is the journal of my five month stay in Milan, Italy and my travels
around Europe. My intention is to keep this every day, but since
that is definitely not going to happen, cut me some slack. I'll also
try to update my photo album on a regular basis so you can keep up with
my escapades.Journal Log
This weekend we went to Rome, finally. It was, without a doubt, my favorite Italian city. The entire city is gorgeous and very scenic. We got in early Friday afternoon and went to see St. Peter's Basilica and the nearby castle. I'm still in awe that I was standing in Vatican City, I've waited a long time to go there and see everything and it lived up to all my expectations and then some. Adam and DC got in later in the evening and that night we didn't do too much because we were all dead tired from partying too hard the night before and waking up early. Saturday we woke up early and went to the Vatican Museum to see all of Raphael's works and the Sistine Chapel, all of which were incredible. I think I appreciated it a lot more than the rest of them because I actually knew the background and information about a lot of the major works there and everyone else was kind of in the dark about it. However, there were way too many tourists in the museum and it definitely detracted from the experience trying to deal with moving when you didn't want to and not being able to move when you wanted to. After that we went down to the Colosseum and took a legitimate tour of it, which was very enlightening and fun. Then we walked up through the Roman Forum to the Pantheon, which was closed for mass, quite disappointing. We went and got dinner by the Spanish Steps (also disappointing in their grandeur). After that, the four other guys went to do a pub crawl all the way across town from our hostel, but Alyssa and I decided we'd rather walk around the city more, so we went and saw some fountains and churches and went back to Piazza San Pietro and the castle at night. The Tiber is gorgeous at night when the light the bridges up and everything. We didn't stay out too late and just went to the bar at the campsite for a while. At around 3:30 I got woken up when the guys came looking for their key and found out that they had gotten in a brawl with a few South Africans and Australians because Greg stole their South African flag and ran away, leaving the other three to deal with some drunken and disgruntled foreigners. The night culminated in my trying to take care of Adam's broken and badly cut nose (from being head butted and punched by the South Africans) after we found out that Italian night guards know nothing about first aid nor do they carry a first aid kit. Sunday we woke up early again and Alyssa and I went on a tour of the locations talked about in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. It was pretty disappointing. One of the fountains was under repair so you couldn't see anything at all. One of the churches, Santa Maria del Popolo, was gorgeous, but not like Brown described it in his book at all, and the other church, Santa Maria Vittore, was closed all day for masses so we couldn't see it. After that we were pretty tired so we just went back to the Forum and lounged around while we waited for the time to come that we could catch our train.
10/22/2006 - Cinque Terre and Pisa (and the Ice Bar and Cremona) Shawn came down this weekend to visit. He got in late Thursday night and we just chilled in my apartment for the evening and caught up a bit. Saturday I went to Cremona on a field trip. They had a gorgeous church but beyond that the city isn't too much to talk about. After I got back to Milan we went to the Absolut Icebar: Milano. It's probably one of the coolest places I've been. It was in a shady section of town, but inside a four star hotel. They gave us these eskimo outfits and gloves and we walked into the bar thats kept at -5 degrees centigrade. They import all of the ice from Sweden and everything is made of ice, the tables, cups, couches, walls, the bar. It's so cool, but you can't stay in there too long because you get too cold. Saturday morning Shawn and I woke up really early and caught a train to Cinque Terre (the five lands) which is on the western coast of Italy near Genoa. It consists of five towns that are within walking distance of each other and connected by hiking trails, through the hills and the mountains and the vineyards. It had poured the night before we got there and apparently there was a landslide on two of the trails, so they shut them down. We got our hostel, which was really shady in the back of some alley and we paid upfront without any paperwork, he gave us the key and told us to drop it in the box in the morning. So we went to the top end of the five towns (after taking the train to the wrong place and ending up inland of the coast) and started our hike down through the towns, stopping to drink wine in the towns along the way. The scenery was incredible! It's by far one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. When we made it to the closed trails, we met an Australian and decided to try to venture the trail anyway (because we were good hikers) and so we broke through the gate blocking the path and walked over the trail. The landslide wasn't that bad for us, but I can understand why they wouldn't want normal people hiking it. We also had to traverse around another gate covered in barbed wire while sitting on a rickedy wooden railing suspended a few hundred feet over a rocky cliffy coastline. Right when we finished it started raining, so that was perfect. After dinner, I had pene with prawns (whole, unbroken prawns...it was surprising and disgusting) we met this girl named Sarah from Chapel Hill who was staying in Italy for a few months. She was pretty cool, we had a good time talking with her. Sunday, we woke up early and caught a train to Pisa. Pisa is the biggest dissapointment ever. The city is trashy as hell and the only pretty area is the field where the tower, the duomo, and the baptistry are (which is quite pretty but too touristy). The tower was pretty neat, I have to admit, but it was really expensive to go up it, so we didn't do that. The cathedral was also gorgeous, but beyond that there was nothing to do in the city. We planned on spending like four hours there, but were bored after one and a half and caught a train back to Milan.
10/15/2006 - Venezia and Padova This past weekend we went to Venice, it's a very wild city and I don't know how much I actually liked it. I was definitely ready to leave by the time we got on the train to go home. We stayed in this campsite that was off of the main island and it was kind of a hike to get into the actual city, so the first night we went back to the campsite early because the last ferry ran at 8:30 and just hung out at the bar in the area. The next morning we woke up early and headed to Murano, which was pretty cool, although I don't want to look at blown glass for the rest of my life. However, it was really cool to see them actually blowing the glass, they could whip out some pretty complex figures in a matter of seconds. After Murano, we went to see San Marco, which was gorgeous and the square was a lot of fun, despite the massive crowds. The Japanese tourists blow me away though, they have absolutely no respect for the church. They would have guides in there explaining things to them despite the signs directly prohibiting that and they would stand right next to the no photography signs taking pictures! We tried to go to the palace, but it was too expensive. However, we did end up splurging and taking a gondola ride for the experience. It was fun to do, despite the fact that the dude didn't sing to us, but apparently they don't ever do that. Piazza San Marco was amazing at night. Each of the restaurants had their own orchestras that alternated and were quite talented. Sunday morning we went to the Guggenheim museum. I really liked it but I don't think the others really appreciated the art as much as I did. That seems to be a general trend with the people I take to places like that. It was cool to actually stand in front of works by Jackson Pollack, Picasso, and Miro. I guess my appreciation for art has shot up since I've been over here. After that Alyssa and I caught an early train to Padova (Padua), which is about an hour outside of Venice. It's home to the Scrovegni Chapel, which we've been studying in my art history class and I really wanted to see. It was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the trip. The chapel was amazing and beautiful. They're so worried about Giotto's frescoes that they make you sit in an airlock and watch a movie while they pump special air into the chamber and then they let you into the actual chapel for 15 minutes. It was even cooler than I possibly could have imagined from the pictures.
10/08/2006 - Bratislava and Wien This weekend was absolutely incredible! When I've told people that I want to go to Bratislava they just look at me like, "are you crazy." And why shouldn't they? After all, Bratislava, in Slovakia, is not publicly depicted very positively in movies like Eurotrip or Hostel. Granted I originally made plans to go to Bratislava just to chase the myth of Absinthe (which was quite the disappointment). I did my research while in Bratislava, and afterwards, and found out that the Absinthe actually began as a medicinal and herbal remedy in France and Switzerland, but people started exploiting the drink and getting wasted. So the French government paid a famous scientist to fudge results and data so that they would have grounds to outlaw the drink. France's prohibitionary efforts were furthered by the fact that at the same time a very famous psychotic murderer was caught and it was discovered that he had been drinking lots of absinthe (along with every other kind of alcohol, because he was an alcoholic). Regardless, Absinthe'll get you very wasted because it has a extremely high proof, but has nothing like the hallucinogenic properties usually attributed to it. Anyway, we got into Bratislava and exchanged currency, for $50.00 I got almost 2,000 Slovak Kronas! We checked into our hostel and found this wild restaurant, built in an old sewer pipe. This place had wild animal skins all over the place and a skeleton of an ostrich. We opened up the menu and they served random things, like ostrich, kangaroo, snake, crocodile, and buffalo. Not to mention they handed us our bill with the skeletal hand of a human covering the price (which was in the thousands of Kronas for eight people having huge meals) and the creepy mix between 80's pop and screaming animal noises/whips. Afterwards we found the really cool bar and chilled there for a while before Adam and I drug everyone to the casino. They finally got me out of the casino around 1:45 and on the walk DC stopped to pee and I was informed that Adam was still at the casino, so, after being threatened, I bolted back and stayed there until 3:00 (but I came out on top so it's ok). Saturday we woke up and went to Wien (Vienna) which is officially my favorite European city. It's absolutely gorgeous! We met DC's friend KP and she showed us around. We went to this church called St. Peter's and it was the most extravagant and beautiful church I've seen in my entire life. We went back to Bratislava before dinner and got some traditional Slovak cuisine before going to a bar. At the bar we all took flaming B-52 shots and at midnight began the long celebration that became my birthday and carried us to more clubs and bars than I can count. It ended with me closing the casino with a bunch of Brits at 5:00. They thought I was hilarious because I was up 250 euro and playin' four hands ranging anywhere from 20 to 60 euro a pop. Sadly, I lost almost all of my winnings in the last hand, but I was still up for the weekend, so I was happy. Sunday we toured around Bratislava, saw the castle and some of the cool sights and then headed home after a ridiculously long weekend of no sleep. However, it was the best way I could think of to celebrate my birthday and my favorite weekend yet. Plus I came home with a bottle of black absinthe and this awesome traditional Slovakian liquor called Becherovka that is very Christmas-esque.
10/01/2006 - Munich: Oktoberfest This weekend was by far the most ridiculous trip I've ever made in my life. I apologize beforehand, but I can't really censor this story without eliminating everything. Class ended at 11:00 on Friday and our train left for Verona at 12:15. I walked out of class with a sweatshirt, my ipod, and my camera...that's it. We went to the grocery store to pick up some food and some drinks for the train and went directly to the train station. We got into Munich at around 8:45 after having a number of extended conversations between ourselves and with an Italian dude living in Munich regarding life, the future, and political policies. All while passing around bottles of rum. When we got off of the train we immediately (within the first 2 minutes) lost DC. So we waited around, got a huge pretzel, and put our important belongings in a locker in the train station, hoping to find him. During this time I thought I saw some random black guy that I recognized but couldn't place. I eventually realized it was one of the guys I met when I visited Shawn in Geneva, and proceeded to chase after him, but it was too late and I lost him. We eventually found DC, and he claimed that we had disappeared from the platform (even though we all got off from the same door of the same car and there were 5 more of us waiting for him). Then we asked a lady on the street how to get to the Hofbrau House. That was a mistake because the actual house is nowhere near the Biergarten with the tents and the festival. So we had to take a taxi to the tents. On the way DC started getting pissy and frustrated because his best friend from home was at the Hofbrau house (that we just left). So as soon as we got to the fairgrounds, DC just vanished without a word. He apparently went back to find KP and we weren't to see him until Saturday afternoon. We went to the first tent we could find and sat down to order a beer. The waiter walked up and we ordered five 'mas' (liter beers), but he just kind of looked at us and said "This is the wine tent." All five of us simultaneously dropped our jaws, screamed, and ran out of the tent. We walked to Lowenbrau, across the way and finally got our beers, which were amazing. Beers at Oktoberfest are between 9-11% and are served in liter steins, they also taste much better. While we were drinking, this girl came over and sat down and started talking to us. She was from Siberia! I'm not really sure what happened but she ended up leaving and her German friends came over and said something extensive to us in German, proceeded to laugh and then left. The tent closed shortly thereafter and we went to find a pub. Walking out of Oktoberfest, we saw some cops and Chad pulled out his list of every bar in Munich. We showed them the list and asked if they could point us in the right direction. After marvelling that we took the time to find the names of all of the bars in Munich one of them walked us over to his police van and swung the door to the back seat open. We were stuck between thinking he was going to drive us there and hoping we weren't going to the drunk tank. But much to our relief, he just pulled out this high-tech touch-screen GPS and showed us where to go! In transit to the pub, we ran into these two Munich girls (who were quite attractive) and told us to go to some nightclub across town. For some reason we let them walk away and didn't really know why, but proceeded to find the pub. Then we got tired and started back to the train station (because we didn't have anywhere to stay). On the way, there was a big group of people watching a street performer play the guitar. We unsuccessfully tried to get him to play 'Friends in Low Places' and then started singing it ourselves, very loudly. A group of Americans chased us down and we talked to them for a while, then all of a sudden I hear this guy in the back yell "JACKSON!" I was like, holy shit, who the hell knows me in Munich? It ended up being two of the guys in Shawn's program from Gevena that I met before I went to Milan! However, they hadn't seen Shawn since they got off the train that morning. We also met the random sketchy dude from Utah that had the dirtiest, nastiest dreadlocks I've ever seen. He followed us back to the train station and pointing to everything and being like, "see that flower pot, that would be an awesome place to sleep man, lets stop there." or "That corner right there, that's mine." He successfully claimed every corner in front of every shop of Munich for at least 12 blocks on our walk. Thankfully, we lost him upon entering the station. We went to get the sheets/mini pillows/whatever the other guys brought from their locker and found a space, not more than 7 feet wide in the middle of two rows of lockers and put all of our stuff down. Greg had a steel cage-bag to put his backpack in that had a steel wire which he proceeded to run through his belt loops in the front as well as Baars's front beltloops (which forced them to sleep face to face). I slept between Baars and Chad and shared Chad's ridiculously small pillow. Adam slept on the end next to Chad. We got to sleep around 1, if you can call it sleep, I doubt I slept more than 20 minutes at any given point in time. Random people would walk by stumbling and screaming and then you could hear them puke not very far away. Every time I was just glad it wasn't on us. Greg wasn't feeling very well earlier in the evening and at least four or five times he started ripping at the chord tying him to Baars and then would run off to the nearest corner to puke. At one point, Baars says he and Greg woke up, simultaneously, holding each other. I, myself, woke up once when Chad's face was but an inch from mine, it was quite disturbing. That floor was supposed to be a whitish-grayish speckled color, but in actuality looked more like a light black or soot. It was also harder and colder than anything I've ever slept on before. Adam, the entire night would roll over and complain about how the whole place smelled like piss. When we woke up, we discovered that Adam had, in fact, been sleeping in a puddle of piss for the entirety of the night. (thank God I wasn't very close to him!) We were in our pathetic slumber when all of a sudden we get kicked and hear this piercing yell of "MAUNIN." Over and over. Finally we opened our eyes and the Munich police were there in red berets, telling us to get up. It was 5:30 and they were kicking us out of the train station. They wouldn't even let us sit there. So instead we walked up the stairs to a balcony and set up camp again. On the way, Adam stole newspaper from a hobo to lay down because we finally realized that stuff has a real use! Thirty minutes later we got booted again by a cleaning crew. We walked right down stairs to a hallway with shops and posted, again, in front of the window of a book shop. Not five minutes after laying down this old German lady came and poked me and started speaking German. We asked if she spoke English and Italian, but she didn't. She did however, KEEP talking to us in German. At one point she said stand up, so I stood up and Baars, Greg, and Chad immediately laid down, so I laid back down. We were all cracking up histerically and telling her to leave us alone (she obviously didn't understand THAT). The only other things we could understand that she was saying were, "Polizia" and the German equivalent of what we figured was "Does your mother know where you're sleeping?" She left after 20 minutes of talking to us in German while we covered our faces and laughed our asses off. At 7:30 we got breakfast and made our way to the tents, very exciting. However, Greg became the first casualty as he caught a train back to Milan at 7:30 because he felt horrible. We got to the Hofbrau tent at 8:30 and it was packed already! While we were standing in the massive mob outside, I saw the dude from Utah that we saw the night before inside the place! Somehow we got in a side door and found a very small space by three Italians from Verona. We ended up talking to them extensively. Piere was 20, his friend was 19, and his other friend was 29. They were absolutely hilarious, but also the most racist people I've met in my life. Apparently in Verona they are Fascist, hate Napoli for being Communist, and "hate zi n!#$@%." They taught us all of these slang words in Veronese dialect and we talked about soccer. They kept telling us about how when a n$#@%! plays soccer in the arena at Verona everyone yells "hoo hoo hoo" and acts like an ape, it's ridiculous! They also gave us their numbers and told us to come stay with them in Verona in December when Verona plays Napoli. Needless to say, we're going. They also kept feeding us sandwiches and chips, so we got an awesome free lunch. Amazing the things you learn when you can speak two languages to people. We learned some awesome drinking chants and soccer taunts too, like, "La mama di Zidane è una putana!" While sitting there, again, someone yelled at me from across the room and I looked up to see none other than Shawn Bennett! Somehow, he had found me and we celebrated with beer and a lot of screaming. We also ran into a Sig from Northern Georgia and one from some other school I don't remember, because we were waving our flag around in the middle of the tent (that fit 9,000 people). Piere and his friends got kicked out around 11 for being too drunk and trying to sleep on the table, so we went into the pit. In the pit there is this giant hanging cupid thing and if you walk under it, they rip your underwear off (literally) and throw it onto this hanging figure. Thankfully, Shawn warned me of this beforehand. We also found DC a little before heading to the pit. In the pit, Chad was waving an American flag and this American who was studying in Munich came up and told us to quit because they don't like that in Munich. Chad promptly told him off and continued to wave the flag. We started jumping on the tables and screaming chants with everyone else and one of the beer wenches threatened to kick me out if I got on the table one more time. By 3:00, we were dying and at 4:00 (after 6 liters of beer each) we went to Pass Out hill to sit down outside. Two and a half hours later, we woke up. Very soon after waking up, Shawn spotted one of his friends from school, George, who he'd lost the night before. Needless to say, we didn't even want to think about beer anymore, so we walked around and admired the carnival rides and atmosphere. By 10:00 we were ready for a change and went back to the train station to pass out again. Shawn caught his train and then we discovered there was a late train to Verona. After waiting in line for 30 minutes we got to the ticket lady and asked if she spoke English or Italian...she didn't and was a total bitch about it, yelling at us in German and pointing away. We got in the next line and waited another 20 minutes to get to a lady who spoke a little English, but told us that the train was booked. We got in the third line, and that lady was really nice, and switched our tickets for only 5 euro more. Chad caught a train to Prague and we got on our train ride from hell. First, there were some very large Italians with bloodshot eyes in our seats and Baars, being very tired and angry told them to get the hell out of our seats, which they did after complaining. We tried to sleep, only to be interrupted every 30 seconds by someone trying to find a seat. I stepped out in the hall (or tried to) only to find that it was packed wall to wall, the entire length of the car with people standing! It was ridiculous. The train finally departed 40 minutes after it was supposed to and we turned the lights of to try to sleep in the most uncomfortable and awkward positions ever. We got to Verona at 5:10 in the morning and left for Milan at 5:30. The train ride was supposed to take about an hour and 40 minutes but ended up taking almost three hours because the train decided to stop at some random station for 40 minutes along the way. I got back to my apartment at 9 and passed out for 7 hours. I woke up, washed my clothes that I wore twice, and took two showers before feeling clean. It was the most ridiculous trip of my life and I absolutely loved it.
09/24/2006 - Menton and Monaco This weekend we made the trip to Monaco, in style. But since we didn't have the cash to stay in the most luxurious country on the planet, we settled for a town ten minutes outside of Monaco between the Monaco-France and France-Italy borders. Alice recommended the town to me, and I definitely approve. It's got some beautiful buildings and a pretty nice boardwalk on the Mediterranian coast. Most of the beaches were rocky, but there were a few sand ones which made it bearable. We got into Menton around 8:30 Friday evening and went looking for our hostel which was '200m' from the beach. What we didn't know was that it was 200m straight line and 400m up a hill! So we finally got to the hostel at around 9:45 only to find that we had an 11:00 curfew and really needed to find some food. Sadly we didn't get to check out too much of Menton that night due to time constraints, but we found this incredible restaurant in the middle of the campgrounds near our hostel that made cheeseburgers that were to die for! we spent the rest of the night just hanging out on the porch of the hostel overlooking the lit up city and the sea. Saturday we woke up early, had the traditional breakfast of bread and bread (with apricot jelly) and then got ready for Monaco. In order to do this right, Adam and I decided that we wanted to look like the highest rollers in the city, so we put on suits and the girls all put on nice dresses and we jumped on a train to Monaco. Our first destination was the famed docks, home to the greatest yachts in the world. When we got there we found out that it was hosting the annual Monaco Yacht Show and that you either needed to be invited in by a VIP or pay 50 euros (neither of which we could do). So we walked up the hill to admire the boats from afar. While Alyssa and I were standing there staring out into the harbor, these two very well dressed, late middle-aged British women walked up and asked me what was going on. I politely told them and then was asked if I could get them into the yacht show with me. That moment alone made the trip worth while, simply knowing that I looked that high class walking around in the richest country in the world. From the docks we went to Monte Carlo and the famous casino. We got in, no problem, and both Adam and I made sizeable contributions to the struggling economy of Monte Carlo while playing roulette and black jack. I was sitting at a roulette table for a while and this pudgy guy in a light green shirt walked up, tossed a 10,000 euro card on the table for change, put 500 on a single number on the table...hit the number, walked off with a brand new 5,000 card and tossed the attendants 200 euros for their troubles. It was the most outrageous display I've ever seen in my life. We left Monaco around 5 and picked up some dinner in Menton before walking around the boardwalk and going to a casino there, where we again donated to the economic well-being of the town. Sarah was the only one to win anything at all and she won 70 euro, only because Adam made her place a bet. I walked around a little peninsula for a while before returning to the hostel and chilling on the porch again. Sunday we tried to get tickets back to Milano and this guy at the train station tried to tell us that both of the trains from Menton to Milano were completely books and that we would have to wait at least a day to get back. So we were very frustrated, but Adam walked to the lady in the next ticket booth, asked her the same question, and we immediately got tickets for the next train (which wasn't nearly booked). Reinforcement of why I hate the French.
Saturday morning, I woke up from two hours of sleep after the hardest night of drinking I've had here and went to the police station to wait for three hours in order to get my permit to stay in Milano. It was awful, but then we caught a 30 minute train to Lake Como a few hours later. We stayed in a small town on the west side of the main lake called Mennagio. We walked around a bit on Saturday, took some pictures, ate a cheeseburger, and went to a club. However, our stupid hostel had a midnight curfew so we went back around 11:45 and played cards with an Australian named William we met from Perth. He just graduated and was traveling around Europe by himself for four months before getting a job and was currently employed as the breakfast server at our hostel. Sunday we got a ferry pass for the day and toured the lake. We went to Bellagio, where I bought my first respectable bottle of Italian regional wine. I'm supposed to save it for 7 to 8 years...not sure how long it'll last. We also traveled to a few minor cities, walked around the backstreets and admired the towns and the lake. Finally we took the ferry to Verenna and came home that evening.
09/10/2006 - Corvara and the Dolomites This weekend our entire program took a trip to the Dolomites, one of the most famous sections of the Italian Alps that is known for its incredible views and stunning scenery. Dolomite is a type of rock that usually appears white or gray, but sometimes turns red when the sun hits it. We made the five hour drive to Corvara on Friday morning and stayed in an amazing four star hotel. This town was really strange. It didn't resemble Italy at all. I felt like I was back in Switzerland, and the people even spoke German more than they spoke Italian. This is because the town is on the pre-World War I Italian-Austrian border. Friday was a pretty chill day. We took a short, leisurely hike around the town to a cool little waterfall at the base of one of the mountains. Afterwards we went ice skating and spent the rest of the night at the hotel bar. Saturday was incredible! They took us to this mountain that I can't remember the name of for my life, but it was right on the Austrian-Italian border and was the site of some major battles during World War I. The Austrians controlled to peak of the mountain, so the Italians constructed a tunnel inside the mountain, from the bottom up, to enable them to blow up the Austrian army above them. We took a gondola up to the top of this mountain, at 2400m (7600ft). The views were amazing! I've never seen anything like these mountains in my life. They seriously stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Liz, a girl from Las Vegas, and I went exploring around the area and hiked across a lengthy ridge that had some ethereal views. Later we walked down and saw the tunnels where the Italians conducted their warfare operations and their communication base as well as the tunnel leading to the bottom of the mountain. Liz and I really wanted to go down the tunnel, but Ricardo (one of the RAs) wouldn't allow it because it was "too dangerous" and we needed "spiky boots, a helmet, and a flashlight." When we went to see the entrance I noticed that there were steel ropes the entire way up the tunnel and as we were standing there a guy in tennis shoes, no helmet, and a dinky flashlight walked up...and behind him, a little white fluffy dog! This immediately sent me to Ricardo begging the question as to why the tunnel wasn't safe enough for me to go down when a dog can climb up it. His response was, "No no, the dog is soft and goes down." I'm not quite sure what he was trying to say, but I'll assume that the true meaning was lost in translation. We got back to the hotel for dinner and met up with Dave, Greg, and DC who were hiking on their own around the area. They told us that Mike went out hiking by himself at 2:30 in the afternoon (in shorts and a t-shirt) with the intentions of reaching the summit (a hike that takes 7 hours up and 7 hours down). At 8:00 when we were eating dinner he still hadn't returned and it was getting dark. As we should have, we informed Ricardo and the other RAs that he was missing, and that set off a wave of mass chaos and panic. By 9:00 he still hadn't been found and the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees Celsius. They had called all of the shelters on every ridge in the area and all of the first aid stations. No one had seen him. They were also constantly calling his cell phone, but never got through. The trails he went up are very dangerous during the day and nobody in their right mind would think to hike them in the dark. The rescue teams wouldn't even move to search for him until the morning came due to the danger. The director of our program was even en route to Corvara from Milano, scheduled to make it in at 1 in the morning! They even notified the European coordinator at the home base in Chicago. We were all on house-arrest because of the incident and both Dave and I were severely freaking out because we probably knew the most about the situation and the conditions. If he didn't make it to a shelter he would freeze because the temperature drops below zero at night and he was in shorts and short sleeves. Or, even worse, he could have fallen off one of the many looming ledges and be seriously injured. Seriously, what kind of moron goes hiking by himself in an area that he's never been to before (much less a foreign country) and tells only one person? When it hit 10:00 we were getting really anxious and then Dave walked outside to get some fresh air and the #$*#!@ comes waltzing up the stairs. We all just about hit him in the face for being so stupid. I sat down on the couch relieved and was literally shaking, so Dave and I quickly made our way to the Disco in the basement to get a few drinks and calm our nerves. We left Corvara early on Sunday and made a pit stop in Verona (renowned as the setting for Romeo and Juliet). It was really cool. Unlike Milano, Verona is everything I expected Italy to be. It's a beautiful city built on a river that surrounds a city littered with palaces, castles, churches, and towers. It's known as the painted cities because the nobles of the city used to display their wealth by painting frescos on the outer walls of their palaces, most of them are very faded now, but you can still see a few. There were also street vendors everywhere, selling little trinkets and masks and scarves. It really was everything I pictured Italy being, not some nasty graffiti-covered city that reeks of a poorly imitated New York City. We went on a tour and saw all of the sights, including the palace where Dante stayed when he was exiled from Firenze (Florence) and the historical homes of the Montegues and the Capulets. We even saw Juliet's famous balcony and got our picture taken with the bronze statue of Juliet (which supposedly brings good luck to your love life if you grab it). We finally made it back to Milano around 8:00 Sunday night. Great weekend.
09/02/2006 - Discovering Milano, Part Two So last night we kept it pretty low-key. We just went over to DC's, which is unofficially becoming the Sig house in Milano, and played some drinking games before walking around the town a bit. Amy and I left early so we could get home before public transportation shut down...that didn't work. We went to the Subway at 11:45 and they kicked us out, so I talked to Ricardo (an Italian student living with DC) about getting home for a bit and he told us to catch the 91 bus, so we did. We should have caught the 90 instead because that goes in the reverse direction of the 91 and would have gotten us home faster. But at around 12:30 or so they kicked us off the bus at some random stop on the southern side of the city. It was a real shady area and neither of us had any idea where we were (the bus was supposed to run until at least 2:30, or so it said on the schedule). We finally found a map and figured out where we were and started walking in the general direction we needed to go for quite a while before getting frustrated and calling a taxi. I finally got home around 1:45 or so, after planning on leaving DC's at 11:45. It was ridiculous. From now on I'm just crashing there and taking the subway back in the morning. Later in the afternoon, Sarah, Amy, Mike, and I went on our own tour of downtown Milano. We actually went inside the Duomo, which was incredible. I've never seen such a huge place before and all of these gigantic canvas paintings were suspended around the entire cathedral. It was insane with all of the altars, statues, and decorations. I found a statue that I couldn't figure out who he was, but he sure as hell looked like Voldemort from Harry Potter, kinda funny. We walked through the castle and the giant park situated right behind it. Then we went to find some more churches. We went to the church of St. Ambrosio and St. Lorenzo (which I really wanted to go to because its supposed to have a statue of Constantine) but both of them were closed because it was siesta time (2-4). Siesta time is a pain in the ass because EVERYTHING is closed right when you have time to do something or need something really bad, but whatever. Amy and I made our first cooking attempt tonight. It went amazingly well considering that we made a white wine sauce (without broth because they don't sell broth in the supermercato down the street) and a salad dressing from scratch. I thought it was decent, but we'll do better next time. After dinner we went back down to DC's to collect everyone else and went to this club called Hollywood. It was packed, but a lot of fun. I added another photo album entitled 'Milano' which contains pictures from both of my adventures into the downtown area.
09/01/2006 - Discovering Milano, Part One I'll begin with the events of last night. We decided to do some exploring of the nightlife in Milano. So, after getting moved in and everything we all met in a section of town called Porta Geneva, which is renowned for its restaurants. We found a great pizzaria called "Da Willies" (I know, very Italian). But it was incredible and I almost ate an entire pizza by myself! I was starving! After that we went to find this club called 'Soul 2 Soul' which is supposed to have the best hip-hop in the city on Thursday nights and no cover charge...but when we got to the place we discovered that it was temporarily closed and wouldn't open again until September 7, which was a let down. But instead we went and found this crazy little bar that people would go into and buy a drink and then go stand/sit out in the middle of the street. This street was packed with like 150 people of all ages. DC got pretty upset with some of the snoody rich people in the area so he started running around asking people if he could be their "esposo trofio" (trophy husband). After a while we left the bar and attempted to find another club, but got lost along the way and ended up halfway across town. But it was a good night and it got me closer to my apartment, so the taxi ride wasn't AS expensive. The location of my apartment sucks. If you walk north for about three minutes you see a sign that says "Uscita Milano" (leaving Milan). It's a great apartment, there's just nobody and nothing around me. I wouldn't have a problem with it if public transportation didn't completely shut down at 1:30. The nightlife doesn't start here until around midnight and then the subway shuts down at 12:30 and the buses/trams only run until 1:30. So if I want to make it home I have to take a taxi which ends up being almost 20 euros to get me out to my place. However, my solution to this problem is to crash at DC, Dave, and Greg's place when we stay out late and then take the Metro back home in the morning, it saves me a ton of money. This morning everyone in my program went on a walking tour of Duomo square and the surrounding sections of downtown Milano. Duomo square is home to the Duomo cathedral which is the second largest gothic cathedral in the world and the only gothic cathedral in Italy. It is absolutely amazing. Duomo square is also home to the building where Mussolini would address the public and the home of the world's first "mall." The mall was created by the Bocconi brothers, who later went on to found the Bocconi school of business in Milano and is now the third most renowned school of business in the world! The mall has this huge dome at the top and is shaped like a cross with the most outrageous and expensive stores you can imagine...and a McDonald's. However, the city of Milan would not let McDonald's into the mall or Duomo square unless they agreed to abandon their usual colors and signs. Because of this, the McDonald's in Duomo square is the only McDonald's in the world that uses a black logo instead of its typical red one. We also walked through the fashion district, which was absolutely ridiculous and extravagant, and saw the castle/old market place. When the castle was built, the nobility was more worried about an uprising from within than from outside, so they built all of the defenses inside the castle and oriented everything from the inside...then the French came in and took over the city (you know you suck at life if the French can conquer you). I also learned a little history about Milano. Apparently this important noble had a dream that he was supposed to found a great city when he came across a pig...with fur. So he sent out a bunch of scouts and one found a furry pig, so they built the city. Now, I've seen the baas relief sculptures of this furry pig and let me tell you...it's definitely either a dog or a wolf, there is nothing pigish about it. Oh yea, funny story of the day: When we got off the Metro at Duomo and walked upstairs this huge black guy put a bracelet on Dave's shoulder and then tied one around my wrist and then got one around DC's wrist. He was hollering at us, so DC and I stopped to talk to him because he spoke really good english. He said that his name was Duomo (bad sign #1 = when someone tells you his name is the same as the Metro stop you're at) and that he was from Senegal, in Africa and that the bracelets were free and represented freedom. So we talked to him for a while and then he finally got around to asking for donations. We said no and started walking away but he kept following us, so we just bolted and ran away. It was kind of a funny sight to see two little white Americans running away from this 6'7" black guy.
08/31/2006 - Milano, Moving In I moved into my apartment today. Its much bigger than I expected, which is good. The only problem is that I don't have a key to get into it right now (my roommate has the only key) and I don't really hang out with him very much (which is a problem) but I get my key tomorrow morning after the confusion ends. Milan is a really dirty city. It seems like every wall lining a city street is completely covered in graffiti. But for some reason, I kind of like being here. It's going to be an experience for sure. My apartment is situated to the North-East of the city center, about 20 minutes away. It's in a pretty nasty and non-eventful part of town, but the complex is outrageously nice. The only downside is I can't pirate an internet connection in my room. Tomorrow morning we're taking a group walking tour of the downtown area, which should be exciting and informative. On Monday my intensive language classes start and for three weeks I'm going to have Italian for four hours a day! After that I'll have it for like 2 hours a day and there is no English allowed in the classroom at all or your grade gets docked (kinda worried about that because I do not pick up foreign languages quickly). But next weekend we have Friday off from classes and we're taking a group trip to the Dolomites in the Italian Alps, which will be amazing. I've added a very small photo album entitled, "The Apartment" that has a few shots of where I live, but I will probably take it down soon in favor of more important pictures.
08/30/2006 - Terrazzata, The Italian Agriturismo So I arrived in Italy with no problems and made it to the IES center despite obvious cultural and lingual barriers, which I thought was quite impressive. Apparently there are 112 students in my program (I thought there were like 50) and a ton of them speak a ton of Italian. As soon as I got here we left for Terrazzata, which is an Italian Agriturimo. As it was explained to me, an Agriturimo is "hard to translate" but is "like a farm/restaurant/hotel/vineyard." It was a pretty cool place, way out in the Italian country-side. On the way I met these three guys from the University of Puget Sound, in Washington, who happened to be Sigma Chis up there. So we've become pretty good friends and I've met a number of other people who are really cool. When we got to the Agriturimo, I played water polo with a bunch of guys which a was a trip because none of us had ever played before or knew what we were doing. The meals were all amazing...three or four course meals that would take at least two hours to eat, always accompanied with a bottle of wine. They made all their own food there, pasta, meats, absolutely everything. Monday night we sat in the bar and tried a bunch of the different types of wine that they had there. Tuesday started our orientation sessions which were all crap and I could have lived without, but we all passed the time somehow. In the afternoon, a bunch of us decided we wanted to walk into the nearest town (5km away) because the IES staff had put a strict limit on the alcohol consumption (that wasn't really enforced, but still). So we made the walk through the country-side and en-route met this like 70 year old little-bitty Italian lady with boils all over her face. We had no idea where we were going so DC (one of the UPS guys) tried talking to her, despite the fact that he knows NO Italian. It was pretty numerous to watch him try to make outrageous gestures to get his point across, but the lady was really nice and accompanied us into town until we could easily find our way. DC took a picture with her and put his hand on her back (which must have made her really uncomfortable because she does not look happy in the picture at all!). But she gave him her address and told him to write her a postcard once he learned some Italian. After that encounter, we went to an Italian bar (store/bar) and got some mediocre beer. Wednesday, we had orientation stuff to do all day which was absolutely pointless and I learned two things: 1. drinks here are stronger and Italians slip rufie's to girls on a regular basis, and 2. we have classes on Fridays (but only in the mornings) and they are mandatory. #1 is a plus (minus the creepy Italian factor) but #2 is definitely a minus. DC and I also decided to look around the agricultrismo and found a bunch of swans, geese, pigs, goats, a donkey, and a mini-horse. The grape fields are really cool and the grapes look different from any I've ever seen (but they taste nasty off the vine). Apparently the group was so loud Tuesday night that the IES staff completely cut off the serving of alcohol to us (but I wasn't to blame, surprisingly). Instead I was hanging out with some Indiana people and playing euchre all night. I also met the DePauw girl...she's ok...for a Danny. I make fun of her a lot. I've updated my orientation photo album, but will update it later when I steal pictures from other people on the trip.
08/27/2006 - Switzerland: Interlaken and Bern Shawn and I decided to go with a group of six of the guys in Shawn's program to Interlaken, a town in the German part of Switzerland that is known for its association and promotion of extreme sports. The town (as the name implies) is situated in the Swiss Alps, between two lakes that are fed by rivers carrying glacial water from the nearby mountains. I have NEVER seen water this color in my life, it was amazing and the entire city is absolutely gorgeous. When we got there, we met this Canadian named Allen who hung out with us for a while and went to the hostel with us. This hostel was crazy, it had a night club underneath it, its own restaurant, and a bunch of cool stuff to do. We got in around 11 Friday morning and after getting situated Shawn and I went hiking up one of the nearby mountains. It took us about three hours to make it to the top (over 1500m or 4500ft). At the top we met the first Swiss native of the trip: an old woman named Heidi that lived in a cottage at the top of this mountain (ironic isn't it). Apparently Shawn and I were the only ones on the trip who had ever heard of the Heidi television series, so nobody found the situation nearly as humorous as the two of us did. After the grueling hike straight up, we started our descent back down, but not before finding a pig farm at the top of this mountain, it was wild. When we made it to the bottom, we got lost trying to find our Hostel and ended up walking all around Interlaken and Winderswil. Along the way this Swiss kid with a rat tail and an earring asked us our names, and after telling him, he told us that his name was James Bond and he proceeded to chase Shawn down the street tickling his neck. When Shawn finally got away from him, the kid started blowing kisses at him...it was pretty weird. We finally made it back to the hostel in time for dinner, and happy hour at the club. I met some cool people at the club including the ski rep from England named Martin who kept trying to get Andrew and me to help him pick up American girls. Saturday we woke up early and went hiking again, this time most of the other guys came with us as well. We hiked on the other side of the mountains to this place called Harderkulm (1300m or 3900ft). After the trip I've come to realize that I am in very good shape for hiking the AT in two summers because, while the trails were very strenuous, I still made it up with no problem. The scenery on the hike was amazing and we had a blast. At the top we found a restaurant and an incredible view. Until we started heading down the mountain, we had great weather, but during our descent it started to drizzle, and after we got back to the hostel for the evening, the sky opened up and it absolutely poured and continued to do so for the rest of the night. We went to the club again Saturday night where we met a ton of people, including a number of students from Virginia Tech that are studying near Milan. I also this girl named Robin who is studying in Madrid and happens to be the roommate of one of the girls in my program. That was kind of cool. Sunday on the way back to Geneva, Shawn, Andrew, and I stopped off in Bern to check out the city. It was nasty weather, but a fun day nonetheless. Bern is named after the bears because the dude that started the city named it after the first animal he killed in the spot that he wanted to start his city. This city was my ideal image of Switzerland, much more so than Geneva (which I didn't like as much). We saw the city's bear pits, which they've maintained since at least 1441 where they keep no fewer than 12 bears. One of them could smell my chocolate and kept staring at us. Next we took a walking tour to the Cathedral in Bern, a bunch of fountains (fountains are SO cool in Switzerland because if it doesn't say otherwise, you can drink out of all of them and they're absolutely everywhere). There was this one fountain of lady Justice that was pretty cool, and the best one was of this ogre eating babies. Who puts a statue like that in the middle of a city? It was crazy! The rivers are amazing in Switzerland, they're all kind of a misty teal color. On our quick walking tour of Bern we also saw the apartment where Einstein lived and this giant clock tower that has rotating parts and figures...very Swiss. The trip definitely made me realize that German Switzerland is MUCH cooler than French Switzerland. I can't wait to get to Milan tomorrow morning, and I still can't believe that I've been hiking in the Swiss Alps for the past few days. Check out my pictures, I've updated the Interlaken and Bern albums. Orientation lasts from Monday through Thursday and I don't know if I'm going to have internet access, so I might not update until Thursday or Friday.
08/23/2006 - Getting to Europe I finally made it to Europe...in one piece. The first flight from Charlotte to Boston was HELL. The stupid plane didn't stop shaking and dropping for the entire two hour flight. When I was flying into Boston I noticed that the scenery was very nice and thought to myself, "Wow, maybe you were wrong about Boston and it really is a cool city." Then I walked into the airport and all of my thoughts positive thoughts about Boston vanished as I found myself completely lost in an airport that was put together so haphazardly that no sensible person could possibly reason their way around the place. Luckily I caught my plane and had a nice trip to Heathrow. The only downside of the flight was the fact that I was locked into my seat by two geriatrics that didn't get up for the entire flight, so I just sat in my seat for six and a half hours straight. British Airways is so much cool than American airlines. They have better food, nicer seats, and personal television monitors in every seat that lets you choose between like 16 different channels/movies. That made my flight. Unlike Boston, Heathrow makes sense and I found my connecting flight quite easily and landed in Geneva where [luckily] Shawn was waiting for me at the airport. We hopped on a bus to his school and checked out a bit of the town. I don't like French, or French speaking cities. I decided that within about three hours of being in Geneva and not finding anyone that spoke any form of English or even tried to communicate with you if you didn't speak French. But the city is nice and I met a bunch of Shawn's friends who were very cool. We went out to a bar Thursday night and ordered this tower of beer with our own personal tap. This thing must've been as tall as I am, and it was awesome! All-in-all, it was a very good decision to fly into Geneva. I even found two people that want to travel to Eastern Europe and Slovenia...so now I have some travel buddies, sweet action. |
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This site was last updated 10/30/06