So, it seems that you can’t globe-trot over three countries (soon to be five, once the semester ends!) without learning some things. Here are a few examples…
1. If you want to save money, you will probably have to travel during the night. Possibly multiple times.
2. Spain trains and France trains are pretty nice. Italy trains…not so much.
3. There are a LOT of skeezy people in this world.
4. If you are an American girl traveling in Europe, you definitely will get whistled at, called beautiful, or otherwise pseudo-accosted by random men, no matter how ugly you happen to look at that moment.
5. I can fit everything I need for approximately 10 days (minus food) into my backpack and purse. WIN.
6. Not showering for over 24 hours will, in fact, not kill you.
7. Bring Kleenex everywhere, because two out of three bathrooms will not have toilet paper in them.
8. On that note – if a bathroom is clean and has toilet paper, soap, hot water, and some way or other to dry your hands, you have clearly died and gone to heaven. One or more of these things is always missing. In fact, if there even IS a bathroom, you better count yourself lucky. Bonus points if you don’t have to pay for it. Let’s just say that I’ve gotten good at holding it/taking advantage of my opportunities when they arise.
9. RyanAir’s strict weight and space limits can make a person extremely creative. Wearing three shirts, anyone?
10. Europeans reeeally love ceilings with ridiculously elaborate paintings all over them. REALLY love them.
11. No matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be desperate moments when you have no idea what the crap you’re doing and manage to get through by the very skin of your teeth.
12. When all hope is lost, McDonald’s will always come through for you. Always. Judge if you must; McDonald’s has earned my love forever.
13. Also, McDonald’s is way fancier in Europe, and has different things in every country. Toblerone McFlurries in Spain (America has seriously got to get in on this), delicious bakery-worthy pastries in France, and the McToast and Kiwi on a Stick in Italy (what??).
14. In a pinch, Italian has enough cognates to be almost understandable, if you speak Spanish. Thank goodness.
15. How to navigate the metro. Seriously – if you come to Paris with me, I could probably get us around quite successfully.
16. You will see all sorts of great pieces of art and culture, but you will probably have no idea what they are. Take advantage of every informative plaque that you can, because they are mighty few and far between. And if you have the means (I currently do not), invest in an audioguide whenever possible. Worth it! It gets really boring after a while to walk around and say “Huh…no idea what that is, but it sure is pretty.”
17. It is entirely possible to get tired of seeing great works of art, castles, and cathedrals. Am I a snob or what?
18. Take a mid-day break. Don’t believe me? Do without one and then see how long you can go without ripping someone’s head off or becoming nothing more than a numb pair of legs and uncaring eyes.
19. Don’t try to see everything in one day. Take a chill pill! You’ll enjoy it more if you have time to linger and really take everything in. Otherwise, you get filled up really fast, and the excess sight-seeing and historical information just spills right over the top, never to be seen again.
20. You really don’t have to take pictures of every little thing. For one thing, you’ll get tired of it quickly, and then when you see something truly amazing, you won’t feel like snapping any photos of it.
21. The pictures you took of that random building or this random piece of art meant something to you at the time, but no one else will care or understand. And even you will probably look at your photos later and think, “Why the heck did I take a picture of that? I don’t even know what it is.” So unless you really have the desire for a picture to remember something by forever, you might as well not bother.
22. When you walk by someone in a big city, you never know what language will come out of their mouth.
23. It’s standard to hear 5 or more languages spoken throughout the course of a day.
24. No matter where you go, there will ALWAYS be a group of Asian tourists. Probably lots of them. Those peeps are hardcore about their traveling!
25. Every country has its own unique feel, and it’s not always what you would have expected it to feel like.
26. People from a certain country have their own unique look – I feel like I’m getting to the place where I could make a guess at where someone is from, just by looking at them.
27. You have to learn to let things go. Sometimes you have to miss something for sake of time or money, and sometimes you have to shell out more than you were planning on, and sometimes things will get messy and take way longer than you think they will. But you just have to go with it and hope that things will turn out better next time. Because, inevitably, they will.
And the most important…
28. God loves me. A whole lot. And He’ll never, ever let me down or stop guiding and protecting me! There have been uncountable moments when I’ve succeeded with God’s help alone.
There probably are/will be more than this, but this is what I remember for now. Honestly, I think I’ve learned more outside of class than in it!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The End Is Near
Here I am in the Ciudadela! I found a good spot where I can see a good portion of the park and a mountain, so I’m happy. And there’s a group of dudes near me who I thought were playing fútbol, but who are actually playing American football! I could hardly believe my eyes. Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, and I FINALLY finished my newspaper article project, so now I have some free time, and it was high time I took advantage of the wonderful weather! I haven’t written in quite a while again…mostly because I’ve been trying to focus on getting my last projects done for school (when I’m not procrastinating…). But now they’re done! My only responsibility for the rest of my time here is to study for finals. Which are pretty darn scary, but it feels good to be mostly through with school.
These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”
However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!
Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!
Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.
I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!
I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)
See you very soon!
These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”
However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!
Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!
Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.
I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!
I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)
See you very soon!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Part V: V is for Venice!
The last leg of our journey had finally arrived. It was amazing how many Italian trains we’d seen the inside of at this point. We got to the Venice train station at 5:30 in the morning – exhausted, freezing cold, and in dire need of showers. We waited in the lobby until 6:00, when a café in the station opened. We went in to warm up and have a little breakfast (of things we had packed, of course…we needed to eat stuff up before flying back home), and make our plan of attack. After checking our big luggage into the drop-off place, it was off to explore the main island of Venice! Which is apparently where all the action is…there’s nothing of interest on the mainland, as we found out later. Anyway, even though we were extremely exhausted, it was still fun to see the canals-for-streets and watch people getting around on vaporettos and water-taxis. We took a look at the Rialto Bridge and the cool-looking houses, and pondered what on Earth ever possessed Italians to build a city on 117 tiny islands in the Adriatic Sea. I guess we’ll never know…
We also took a look at some gondolas! We didn’t ride one, though, because we weren’t willing to shell out the bucks for something that would probably be really awkward anyway. Gondolas seem to be the realm of cute coupley-ness, which we most certainly didn’t qualify for.
After doing a good deal of entertaining shopping for glass jewelry, it was time to head to the hotel. It had been the longest morning EVER, but 2:00 had to come sometime. And boy, were we ready for it. After crossing over to the mainland on yet another train, we found the bus we needed and got on. We quickly found out that the bus had a lot more stops than we originally thought, and also that our hotel was apparently way out in the boonies, so much so that it didn’t really feel like Venice anymore. And thank goodness that there were two nice Italian ladies on the bus to help us (they didn’t speak English, but with our knowledge of Spanish, the very few Italian words we collectively know, and some hand gestures, we figured it out), because we never would have found the hotel without them – poor European signage strikes again. But we made it, nonetheless. The check-in lady also did not speak English, but since we were mostly talking numbers, cognates came to our rescue again. After getting our money figured out, we headed up to our room.
The hotel was quite nice – the first legit hotel I’ve stayed in since arriving in Madrid, I think, and when it’s at a hostel price, how can you go wrong? We had our own little room and bathroom, decorated in a pretty antique style. This was somewhat lost on us, however, as all we wanted to do was sleep. Which we promptly did. For fourteen hours. It was glorious! We went to sleep at 3:00, fully intending to get up at 6:00, but didn’t wake up to the alarm and slept until 9:00 p.m.! We stayed awake for three hours to re-pack once again and get everything in order for leaving in the morning, and went back to bed at 12:00, sleeping until it was time to get up, take wooonderful showers (finally!!) and then get to the airport to fly back to Spain.
We were almost home! We couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, however, we had to do so for longer than we were expecting. When we got to Barcelona, we had to hurry to catch the last bus of the night back to Pamplona. After going to the wrong station and then scrambling to find the bus company’s office, we arrived there only to find out that every bus back to Pamplona that night was crammed full. And we hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, since we didn’t know for sure when we would land and what bus exactly we would be able to take. Perfect. After feeling desperate for a while and hoping in vain that the waiting list would come through for us, we ended up buying tickets for the 7:30 bus the next morning and making plans to wait out the night. Megan and I were ready to hole up in the station and take turns sleeping through the night since we didn’t want to pay for yet another hostel, but Lauren really wanted to try to find a room. The lady at the bus station gave us the name of a hostel close by, and we figured we might as well go check it out. This turned out to be a good decision – in any case, I could totally feel God’s guiding hand in the whole experience. He’s working overtime with us this semester, let me tell you! And I’m so very grateful for it. When we got to the hostel and buzzed in, this nice older lady came down to talk to us – I can’t explain it, but I got this weird feeling like she knew we were coming! Kinda cool. She was super nice when we told her that we had nowhere to sleep for the night, and told us that she had a triple for us for 20 euro apiece, which is a great price on such short notice. Especially since we overheard other people who checked in who had to pay 35 euro for a room. So we were very blessed! I ended up being quite glad that we hadn’t opted to stay in the station – a full night’s sleep was so needed at that point.
The next morning, we got up early and made SURE our butts were on that 7:30 bus. We made it with no trouble (we could see the station from our hostel window) and were finally, finally on our way home to Pamplona. And one long bus ride later, we were there! I’ve never been so happy to see the inside of that bus station.
So after a long, amazing adventure, we were finally back! A little more tired, a little wiser, and a lot poorer, we were back among familiar things again. The trip had its difficulties, but it also had some wonderful moments! There are so many things that I know I’ll never forget.
We also took a look at some gondolas! We didn’t ride one, though, because we weren’t willing to shell out the bucks for something that would probably be really awkward anyway. Gondolas seem to be the realm of cute coupley-ness, which we most certainly didn’t qualify for.
After doing a good deal of entertaining shopping for glass jewelry, it was time to head to the hotel. It had been the longest morning EVER, but 2:00 had to come sometime. And boy, were we ready for it. After crossing over to the mainland on yet another train, we found the bus we needed and got on. We quickly found out that the bus had a lot more stops than we originally thought, and also that our hotel was apparently way out in the boonies, so much so that it didn’t really feel like Venice anymore. And thank goodness that there were two nice Italian ladies on the bus to help us (they didn’t speak English, but with our knowledge of Spanish, the very few Italian words we collectively know, and some hand gestures, we figured it out), because we never would have found the hotel without them – poor European signage strikes again. But we made it, nonetheless. The check-in lady also did not speak English, but since we were mostly talking numbers, cognates came to our rescue again. After getting our money figured out, we headed up to our room.
The hotel was quite nice – the first legit hotel I’ve stayed in since arriving in Madrid, I think, and when it’s at a hostel price, how can you go wrong? We had our own little room and bathroom, decorated in a pretty antique style. This was somewhat lost on us, however, as all we wanted to do was sleep. Which we promptly did. For fourteen hours. It was glorious! We went to sleep at 3:00, fully intending to get up at 6:00, but didn’t wake up to the alarm and slept until 9:00 p.m.! We stayed awake for three hours to re-pack once again and get everything in order for leaving in the morning, and went back to bed at 12:00, sleeping until it was time to get up, take wooonderful showers (finally!!) and then get to the airport to fly back to Spain.
We were almost home! We couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, however, we had to do so for longer than we were expecting. When we got to Barcelona, we had to hurry to catch the last bus of the night back to Pamplona. After going to the wrong station and then scrambling to find the bus company’s office, we arrived there only to find out that every bus back to Pamplona that night was crammed full. And we hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, since we didn’t know for sure when we would land and what bus exactly we would be able to take. Perfect. After feeling desperate for a while and hoping in vain that the waiting list would come through for us, we ended up buying tickets for the 7:30 bus the next morning and making plans to wait out the night. Megan and I were ready to hole up in the station and take turns sleeping through the night since we didn’t want to pay for yet another hostel, but Lauren really wanted to try to find a room. The lady at the bus station gave us the name of a hostel close by, and we figured we might as well go check it out. This turned out to be a good decision – in any case, I could totally feel God’s guiding hand in the whole experience. He’s working overtime with us this semester, let me tell you! And I’m so very grateful for it. When we got to the hostel and buzzed in, this nice older lady came down to talk to us – I can’t explain it, but I got this weird feeling like she knew we were coming! Kinda cool. She was super nice when we told her that we had nowhere to sleep for the night, and told us that she had a triple for us for 20 euro apiece, which is a great price on such short notice. Especially since we overheard other people who checked in who had to pay 35 euro for a room. So we were very blessed! I ended up being quite glad that we hadn’t opted to stay in the station – a full night’s sleep was so needed at that point.
The next morning, we got up early and made SURE our butts were on that 7:30 bus. We made it with no trouble (we could see the station from our hostel window) and were finally, finally on our way home to Pamplona. And one long bus ride later, we were there! I’ve never been so happy to see the inside of that bus station.
So after a long, amazing adventure, we were finally back! A little more tired, a little wiser, and a lot poorer, we were back among familiar things again. The trip had its difficulties, but it also had some wonderful moments! There are so many things that I know I’ll never forget.
Part IV: Pisa and Cinque Terre – A Few Hours in Paradise
Once again, we got up early to catch our next connection, an hour-long train ride to Pisa. This was a quick stop, as the only thing we cared about seeing here was the Leaning Tower, of course. We weren’t sure where to go and the map at the train station was somewhat misleading, but we followed the signs and made it there just fine. The tower was fantastic! We loved it. It’s actually smaller than you might think it would be (is that the way everything is here? I wonder sometimes), but so pretty! The cathedral behind it was gorgeous as well, but we were too distracted by the Tower to notice. We had a grand old time taking funny pictures of ourselves “holding up” the Tower, and other such things. Once we’d had our fill of that, it was time to walk back to the station, grab some lunch, and get onto our next train, heading for Cinque Terre. In all, we spent a grand total of about two hours in Pisa. Definitely my fastest city-visit yet!
The ride to Cinque Terre was a series of long tunnels and ear-popping, but overall not too bad. And when the gaps in the tunnels started giving me split-second views of rocky shore and turquoise water, I wanted to start jumping up and down or shrieking or some equally un-Kristen-like display of excitement. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, but the sea/ocean never fails to make me ecstatic!
I feel like I’ve explained what Cinque Terre is a million times, but I don’t remember if I did so on here or not yet. So if I have, just skip ahead. Anyway, it’s a group of five smallish towns on the western coast of Italy, and you can hike between them and such. The town we visited was called Levanto, and it was wonderful! It was so nice to be in a place that didn’t have jillions of people everywhere, forcing one to shove through the crowd to get anywhere. For some reason, it had a similar feeling for me as being in Joliet, Montana. If Joliet were on the Mediterranean Sea. With exotic-looking houses. The atmosphere was just very relaxing, and there was so much natural beauty everywhere! I feel like we don’t always get a lot of that here.
Once we got off the train, the first thing we did was find the beach! We then proceeded to change into our bikinis (Yes, you heard me right. I have now been more exposed in public than I have ever been O.o) and stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon! We soaked in the sun (I didn’t get very tan, though, because I covered myself copiously in the rather expensive sunscreen I had thankfully bought in Florence – being sunburned that night would’ve been unimaginably awful, and you’ll soon see why), got covered by rocky sand, waded in the freezing yet refreshing water, and took in the general splendor as the afternoon grew slowly. Megan introduced me to the wonderfulness that is the music of Tyrone Wells, and we all watched the antics of the most adorable little Italian boy ever, who was hanging out nearby us with his equally adorable family. Later on, Megan and I walked down the beach a bit and through a couple of the (freezing!) tunnels down the road. The scenery was AMAZING – definitely high on my top-ten list of Beautiful Places Kristen Has Seen. Lots of rocky hills with pretty houses on them, and water that was actually blue – not just reflecting the sun so that it looks blue; no, it was really and truly blue! I’ve never seen anything like it. And while Megan and I watched the water, we saw some animals jumping around a ways off, and there was something moving around in the water quite close to us! It was still too far to see what it was, and the thing refused to jump out and show itself, but we decided it was a whale. We wanted it to be, at least. Does the Mediterranean Sea have whales in it? I don’t know, but it was cool. And gosh, I can’t say enough about how gorgeous the place was. I would so love to go back someday!
After a few gorgeous hours on the Levanto shore, sunset had arrived and it was time to head back to the train station, as our train to Venice was leaving at 8:30 p.m. We stopped to pick up some sustenance at a grocery store on the way back, since we knew that we had a very long night ahead of us. To save money once again, we decided not to stay the night in Cinque Terre and instead go straight on to Venice that night. We knew it would be rough, but again, you just have to make the best of it sometimes. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we could have taken a direct train, but unfortunately, Levanto is small enough that the guy at the ticket office gave us a funny look when we told him we wanted tickets for Venice. We explained to him that we knew it wasn’t direct, but we didn’t quite realize what this would mean at the time. Our first connection was from Levanto to Parma, where we arrived at a bit after 11:00. Next up was Parma to Bologna.
By then it was about 1:00. Unfortunately, we had to wait until 3:00 for our final connection to Venice, which was exceedingly unpleasant. Thankfully, there was an indoor waiting-room (which the Parma station hadn’t had, and neither had a bathroom that didn’t cost money to use – how is this not illegal?? I miss that about the States – here, you can’t always pee for free!), though we were still very cold because we had that after-nap feeling of being deeply chilled even though the weather was only a bit brisk. And there were very few people in the room that weren’t skeezy-looking men, which was quite unnerving. But we stuck together and were okay. After two very long hours, it was finally time for our train to leave. We found our compartment, which had some weird old lady in it who wouldn’t take her feet off of one of the seats we were supposed to have (thankfully, one of the men in our compartment left and then there was enough room), and which was very dark and stuffy. It was approximately 2 hours until we would arrive in Venice, so we settled in and tried to sleep a little. We had moderate success, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
At around 5:15, I woke up, used the nasty train bathroom because I didn’t know how long it would be until I’d find another one (at this point, it had been about 48 hours since we’d seen a bathroom with toilet paper in it…thank goodness for Kleenex. What I would have given for a clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap…), got my stuff together, and got ready to get off. We waited until the train station that was on the main island so that we would only have to pay for one transport to the mainland instead of two.
And so, after a long, difficult night, we were finally there! Even though the ride had been unpleasant, however, we just had to remind ourselves that it had meant we could spend half the day in Cinque Terre, and we knew that it had all been worth it.
Final chapter – Venice!
The ride to Cinque Terre was a series of long tunnels and ear-popping, but overall not too bad. And when the gaps in the tunnels started giving me split-second views of rocky shore and turquoise water, I wanted to start jumping up and down or shrieking or some equally un-Kristen-like display of excitement. Somehow I managed to restrain myself, but the sea/ocean never fails to make me ecstatic!
I feel like I’ve explained what Cinque Terre is a million times, but I don’t remember if I did so on here or not yet. So if I have, just skip ahead. Anyway, it’s a group of five smallish towns on the western coast of Italy, and you can hike between them and such. The town we visited was called Levanto, and it was wonderful! It was so nice to be in a place that didn’t have jillions of people everywhere, forcing one to shove through the crowd to get anywhere. For some reason, it had a similar feeling for me as being in Joliet, Montana. If Joliet were on the Mediterranean Sea. With exotic-looking houses. The atmosphere was just very relaxing, and there was so much natural beauty everywhere! I feel like we don’t always get a lot of that here.
Once we got off the train, the first thing we did was find the beach! We then proceeded to change into our bikinis (Yes, you heard me right. I have now been more exposed in public than I have ever been O.o) and stayed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon! We soaked in the sun (I didn’t get very tan, though, because I covered myself copiously in the rather expensive sunscreen I had thankfully bought in Florence – being sunburned that night would’ve been unimaginably awful, and you’ll soon see why), got covered by rocky sand, waded in the freezing yet refreshing water, and took in the general splendor as the afternoon grew slowly. Megan introduced me to the wonderfulness that is the music of Tyrone Wells, and we all watched the antics of the most adorable little Italian boy ever, who was hanging out nearby us with his equally adorable family. Later on, Megan and I walked down the beach a bit and through a couple of the (freezing!) tunnels down the road. The scenery was AMAZING – definitely high on my top-ten list of Beautiful Places Kristen Has Seen. Lots of rocky hills with pretty houses on them, and water that was actually blue – not just reflecting the sun so that it looks blue; no, it was really and truly blue! I’ve never seen anything like it. And while Megan and I watched the water, we saw some animals jumping around a ways off, and there was something moving around in the water quite close to us! It was still too far to see what it was, and the thing refused to jump out and show itself, but we decided it was a whale. We wanted it to be, at least. Does the Mediterranean Sea have whales in it? I don’t know, but it was cool. And gosh, I can’t say enough about how gorgeous the place was. I would so love to go back someday!
After a few gorgeous hours on the Levanto shore, sunset had arrived and it was time to head back to the train station, as our train to Venice was leaving at 8:30 p.m. We stopped to pick up some sustenance at a grocery store on the way back, since we knew that we had a very long night ahead of us. To save money once again, we decided not to stay the night in Cinque Terre and instead go straight on to Venice that night. We knew it would be rough, but again, you just have to make the best of it sometimes. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if we could have taken a direct train, but unfortunately, Levanto is small enough that the guy at the ticket office gave us a funny look when we told him we wanted tickets for Venice. We explained to him that we knew it wasn’t direct, but we didn’t quite realize what this would mean at the time. Our first connection was from Levanto to Parma, where we arrived at a bit after 11:00. Next up was Parma to Bologna.
By then it was about 1:00. Unfortunately, we had to wait until 3:00 for our final connection to Venice, which was exceedingly unpleasant. Thankfully, there was an indoor waiting-room (which the Parma station hadn’t had, and neither had a bathroom that didn’t cost money to use – how is this not illegal?? I miss that about the States – here, you can’t always pee for free!), though we were still very cold because we had that after-nap feeling of being deeply chilled even though the weather was only a bit brisk. And there were very few people in the room that weren’t skeezy-looking men, which was quite unnerving. But we stuck together and were okay. After two very long hours, it was finally time for our train to leave. We found our compartment, which had some weird old lady in it who wouldn’t take her feet off of one of the seats we were supposed to have (thankfully, one of the men in our compartment left and then there was enough room), and which was very dark and stuffy. It was approximately 2 hours until we would arrive in Venice, so we settled in and tried to sleep a little. We had moderate success, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
At around 5:15, I woke up, used the nasty train bathroom because I didn’t know how long it would be until I’d find another one (at this point, it had been about 48 hours since we’d seen a bathroom with toilet paper in it…thank goodness for Kleenex. What I would have given for a clean bathroom with toilet paper and soap…), got my stuff together, and got ready to get off. We waited until the train station that was on the main island so that we would only have to pay for one transport to the mainland instead of two.
And so, after a long, difficult night, we were finally there! Even though the ride had been unpleasant, however, we just had to remind ourselves that it had meant we could spend half the day in Cinque Terre, and we knew that it had all been worth it.
Final chapter – Venice!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Part III: Florence (The Halfway Point)
We left on a midmorning train for Florence on Easter Monday. The ride was very pleasant, with beautiful, mountainous Tuscan scenery to watch the whole time, and a six-person compartment that put us in mind of the Hogwarts Express.
The train stopped at a different station than the one we had directions for, since we took a later train than we had originally planned on, and it took us to the station on the outskirts instead of the one in the center of Florence. Thankfully, Megan had met a nice man on the train and we happened to run into him as we wandered the station, trying to figure out where to go next. Conveniently, he was going the same direction we were, so he said we could follow him and he’d let us know where to get off. Thank the Lord for good Samaritans! After the bumpiest bus ride of my life, we arrived at the other station, and were now in the town center. From there, it took a little bit to find our hostel, as the streets are very poorly marked in Florence (what else is new, right?). By the time we got settled into our room, we were all getting a bit frustrated because we’d been hoping to head to Il Duomo that day but were quickly realizing that there wouldn’t be time since it closes in the early evening. So we made a change of plans – Lauren and I were feeling hungry so we went to find a place to split a pizza and a focaccia sandwich (which turned out to be delicious!) and Megan wasn’t feeling like lunch just then, so she went to scope things out and check on opening and closing times of some of the places we wanted to see.
After lunch, we met up again and walked around a bit. We saw the famous Old Bridge (really cool-looking! It’s the only bridge I’ve seen with houses built on it), the fake David, and the front of the Uffizi art gallery. And then we crossed the bridge and had the best gelato of our lives at a great little shop that a couple of Megan’s friends who have studied in Florence told her about. I’ve never met them, but I’m grateful to them, all the same! After that we made a stop at the grocery store to buy some fresh pasta and pesto sauce in hopes of cooking it in the hostel’s kitchen later.
Next, Lauren went on her own to look around a bit, and Megan and I relaxed and soaked up some sun in the main piazza for a while. Then we checked out the prices and schedule for the Pisa tickets that we’d need in two days, and then hung out by the river Arno. The river is pretty from afar, but is VERY dirty up close – envision a river full of cappuccino, and you’ll basically know what it looks like. And apparently Arno is famous for huge river rats, though we didn’t see any (Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist). Not for lack of trying, however.
When we had tired of that, we went to the hostel to try to make our pasta for dinner, but the kitchen was occupied all evening, and we weren’t sure what to do/weren’t sure if we were allowed to use it. Especially since the owners were kind of awkward, and apparently live in the hostel itself, and so were no doubt making dinner in there. And it seemed like every time we talked to them, something got lost in translation, and we didn’t want to bother with it this time around. So we ended up cracking open our pasta and eating a little of it like popcorn. Before you get all judge-y, let me tell you that it was actually quite tasty! Fresh pasta is soft enough to eat – granted, the cheese would have tasted better if it were melty and not all dry…but you do what you have to do sometimes. We snacked in lieu of dinner, and watched some Italian TV (first hostel I’ve seen with a television in the room!). We understood about one word in twenty, but it was still fun to watch Zach Braff speaking in lilt-y Italian. After that it was off to sleep in our comfy beds!
The next day, Lauren was in the mood to strike out on her own, so Megan and I made plans and got started early. The first stop was the David at the Academia museum – we were both very excited to see it, and were not disappointed! This was another of the trip’s highlights for me. What a stunning work of art – it’s one of those intriguing things that one feels like staring at for a good long time. The huge head, hands, and feet that you always hear about were very apparent and quite interesting. And it was so detailed – you could see the veins in his hands, his muscles, his pupils, his…well. Let’s just say the guy could’ve used a leaf. But anyway, it was so cool! Definitely worth our time.
The museum itself was fascinating as well – for once, each piece of art had a plaque below it with information about its creator, origin, and history, so we actually knew where stuff came from and what it meant. This made every piece about ten times more interesting than it would otherwise have been, and consequently I was quite fascinated! I absolutely loved that museum. My favorite room was the one where they had plaster replicas of a great deal of statues which are apparently in several other locations. Even though they weren’t the originals, they were absolutely beautiful, and I got to find out who they were this time! I’ve decided that I am pretty much in love with classical statues…there’s just something great about them.
After the museum, it was time to go to Il Duomo, where we got in line to climb up to the cupola. The wait was rather long, but was made slightly less boring by the entertaining British family ahead of us, and the group of German boys playing soccer beside the line, who kept kicking the ball over by us accidentally. Finally, we got in and started the climb. It was yet another large set of daunting, narrow steps, but this was getting to be old hat by now, so it didn’t faze us too much. The view from the top was gorgeous – it may have been my favorite of the trip. The buildings themselves were interesting, more or less, but it was the green and grey mountains that made the view. So beautiful! And the inside of the dome was amazing as well – it was completely painted with vivid pictures of heaven and hell – around the rim, there were various demons and people suffering away, and as it got farther to the top, things got better and better for the painted people – around the top rim was heaven. Yeah, kind of hard to describe. But it may have been my favorite painted ceiling (wow, lots of favorites in Florence…) so far, which is saying something, as I’ve seen a LOT.
Once we’d seen Il Duomo, we went back to the hostel for round two of Pasta-Making Attempts. And failed once again…we found out the kitchen was not available for our use at all. Figures. So we had raw pasta once again, rather than wasting it. It’s remarkably filling, so whatever. With our bellies reasonably happy once again, we made another gelato run, and went back to Il Duomo to see the actual cathedral part. It was fairly uninteresting, but it was free, so whatever. After that, we had completed all of our sight-seeing goals for the day, so we went back to the hostel and took a lovely and much-needed two-hour nap. Then it was off to the piazza to relax again and another pizza-and-gelato run. And on our way, we ran into Edgar, Val, and Sol, three other students in our exchange program at the U of Navarra! What are the chances?
Then it was back to the hostel yet again, where we rearranged our luggage and settled in for the night. We were surprised by a knock at the door later on and yet more surprised to see the owner of the hostel standing there with a serving of homemade tiramisu for each of us! This raised him rather higher in our esteem than he had been before, I daresay. Yum!
And that about did it for our Florence trip. Next stop: Pisa and Cinque Terre!
The train stopped at a different station than the one we had directions for, since we took a later train than we had originally planned on, and it took us to the station on the outskirts instead of the one in the center of Florence. Thankfully, Megan had met a nice man on the train and we happened to run into him as we wandered the station, trying to figure out where to go next. Conveniently, he was going the same direction we were, so he said we could follow him and he’d let us know where to get off. Thank the Lord for good Samaritans! After the bumpiest bus ride of my life, we arrived at the other station, and were now in the town center. From there, it took a little bit to find our hostel, as the streets are very poorly marked in Florence (what else is new, right?). By the time we got settled into our room, we were all getting a bit frustrated because we’d been hoping to head to Il Duomo that day but were quickly realizing that there wouldn’t be time since it closes in the early evening. So we made a change of plans – Lauren and I were feeling hungry so we went to find a place to split a pizza and a focaccia sandwich (which turned out to be delicious!) and Megan wasn’t feeling like lunch just then, so she went to scope things out and check on opening and closing times of some of the places we wanted to see.
After lunch, we met up again and walked around a bit. We saw the famous Old Bridge (really cool-looking! It’s the only bridge I’ve seen with houses built on it), the fake David, and the front of the Uffizi art gallery. And then we crossed the bridge and had the best gelato of our lives at a great little shop that a couple of Megan’s friends who have studied in Florence told her about. I’ve never met them, but I’m grateful to them, all the same! After that we made a stop at the grocery store to buy some fresh pasta and pesto sauce in hopes of cooking it in the hostel’s kitchen later.
Next, Lauren went on her own to look around a bit, and Megan and I relaxed and soaked up some sun in the main piazza for a while. Then we checked out the prices and schedule for the Pisa tickets that we’d need in two days, and then hung out by the river Arno. The river is pretty from afar, but is VERY dirty up close – envision a river full of cappuccino, and you’ll basically know what it looks like. And apparently Arno is famous for huge river rats, though we didn’t see any (Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist). Not for lack of trying, however.
When we had tired of that, we went to the hostel to try to make our pasta for dinner, but the kitchen was occupied all evening, and we weren’t sure what to do/weren’t sure if we were allowed to use it. Especially since the owners were kind of awkward, and apparently live in the hostel itself, and so were no doubt making dinner in there. And it seemed like every time we talked to them, something got lost in translation, and we didn’t want to bother with it this time around. So we ended up cracking open our pasta and eating a little of it like popcorn. Before you get all judge-y, let me tell you that it was actually quite tasty! Fresh pasta is soft enough to eat – granted, the cheese would have tasted better if it were melty and not all dry…but you do what you have to do sometimes. We snacked in lieu of dinner, and watched some Italian TV (first hostel I’ve seen with a television in the room!). We understood about one word in twenty, but it was still fun to watch Zach Braff speaking in lilt-y Italian. After that it was off to sleep in our comfy beds!
The next day, Lauren was in the mood to strike out on her own, so Megan and I made plans and got started early. The first stop was the David at the Academia museum – we were both very excited to see it, and were not disappointed! This was another of the trip’s highlights for me. What a stunning work of art – it’s one of those intriguing things that one feels like staring at for a good long time. The huge head, hands, and feet that you always hear about were very apparent and quite interesting. And it was so detailed – you could see the veins in his hands, his muscles, his pupils, his…well. Let’s just say the guy could’ve used a leaf. But anyway, it was so cool! Definitely worth our time.
The museum itself was fascinating as well – for once, each piece of art had a plaque below it with information about its creator, origin, and history, so we actually knew where stuff came from and what it meant. This made every piece about ten times more interesting than it would otherwise have been, and consequently I was quite fascinated! I absolutely loved that museum. My favorite room was the one where they had plaster replicas of a great deal of statues which are apparently in several other locations. Even though they weren’t the originals, they were absolutely beautiful, and I got to find out who they were this time! I’ve decided that I am pretty much in love with classical statues…there’s just something great about them.
After the museum, it was time to go to Il Duomo, where we got in line to climb up to the cupola. The wait was rather long, but was made slightly less boring by the entertaining British family ahead of us, and the group of German boys playing soccer beside the line, who kept kicking the ball over by us accidentally. Finally, we got in and started the climb. It was yet another large set of daunting, narrow steps, but this was getting to be old hat by now, so it didn’t faze us too much. The view from the top was gorgeous – it may have been my favorite of the trip. The buildings themselves were interesting, more or less, but it was the green and grey mountains that made the view. So beautiful! And the inside of the dome was amazing as well – it was completely painted with vivid pictures of heaven and hell – around the rim, there were various demons and people suffering away, and as it got farther to the top, things got better and better for the painted people – around the top rim was heaven. Yeah, kind of hard to describe. But it may have been my favorite painted ceiling (wow, lots of favorites in Florence…) so far, which is saying something, as I’ve seen a LOT.
Once we’d seen Il Duomo, we went back to the hostel for round two of Pasta-Making Attempts. And failed once again…we found out the kitchen was not available for our use at all. Figures. So we had raw pasta once again, rather than wasting it. It’s remarkably filling, so whatever. With our bellies reasonably happy once again, we made another gelato run, and went back to Il Duomo to see the actual cathedral part. It was fairly uninteresting, but it was free, so whatever. After that, we had completed all of our sight-seeing goals for the day, so we went back to the hostel and took a lovely and much-needed two-hour nap. Then it was off to the piazza to relax again and another pizza-and-gelato run. And on our way, we ran into Edgar, Val, and Sol, three other students in our exchange program at the U of Navarra! What are the chances?
Then it was back to the hostel yet again, where we rearranged our luggage and settled in for the night. We were surprised by a knock at the door later on and yet more surprised to see the owner of the hostel standing there with a serving of homemade tiramisu for each of us! This raised him rather higher in our esteem than he had been before, I daresay. Yum!
And that about did it for our Florence trip. Next stop: Pisa and Cinque Terre!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Part II: When in Rome...
After a long day of traveling on Friday, we were in Rome! It took a little doing – our plane was delayed, and since the information about our Rome hostel said that check-in time is only until 10 p.m., we were starting to get a little worried. Our hostel was on the other-ish side of town from the airport, and Rome is HUGE, so it would take us a good hour to get over there. We soon realized that there was no way we’d make the 10 p.m. deadline, so Lauren called the hostel and explained the situation. Thankfully, they were very understanding, and said that it was fine as long as we got there before midnight. And when we were there, there were still people checking in after that time, so we probably would have been fine anyway. But I think it was best to double-check, at any rate.
Anyway, after two bus connections and some uncertain searching on some dark-ish streets, we were there. It was rather more adventure than we wanted at that point, but we made it safely. The hostel itself was great (even though the stairwell smelled strongly of cat) – it’s a converted convent and only women are allowed to stay there It was cute – all the artwork and such on the walls were photos of women, articles about women, and paintings done by or of women. No boys allowed! Which was sooo nice – after all the sketchy men we’ve seen on our travels, it was wonderful to feel safe and know that our roommates were for sure not going to try anything :-S And our room was so spacious and nice, with comfy beds and big closets to lock up our stuff. All in all a good choice for a three-night stay, I daresay! Anyway, all there was time for that night was some e-mail checking and some sleep, to get ready for a big day the next day.
On our first full day in Rome, we got up early to head to Vatican City! It was a short walk from our hostel, which was nice. We were instantly impressed with the outside courtyard (I’ll be able to recognize it on TV now!), and took some pictures as we waited in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. The line was fairly fast-moving, and we were in before we knew it. What an impressive building! It’s got to be one of the biggest structures I’ve ever seen, and so beautiful. After looking around inside for a bit, we headed over to the cupola to climb up. 551 dizzying and claustrophobic steps later, we were at the top! This was our second city view, and quite an impressive one. By the time we got back down, our legs were quite shaky, but it was worth it.
Next up was the Vatican Museum. The line for the Basilica may have been a breeze, but this one was decidedly not – we waited in a huge line along the wall for practically 3 hours. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest line I’ve ever been in! Thankfully we had some cookies and pumpkin seeds to tide us over while we waited, but we were more than ready to get inside when we finally got to the door. There were so many people inside! Not losing each other in the crowd proved to be a bit of a feat. After looking around a bit, we bypassed most of the museums because the only thing we really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel. We found the first sign for it and headed off. Little did we know, they herd you through a seemingly endless section of the museum before getting to the actual Chapel – every time I saw another sign for it, I thought, “Maybe it’s just around the bend!” But it wasn’t, for a very long time. It’s probably good because there might not be too many people who would look at that part of the museum if the setup were different. And at least there were cool things to look at. But it made us rather impatient after a while.
Anyway, 20 signs and a mile of museum (well, that’s what it felt like, anyway) later, we were in the Sistine Chapel! It was worth it, I daresay. Everyone says that it’s smaller than they thought it would be…I guess I’d have to agree with them there. It was very impressive, though, with a ceiling-full of gorgeous paintings by Michelangelo. There were guards patrolling and periodically shouting “No photos!” and “Quiet, please!” in English and Italian. Nobody listened, though. Including us…we sneaked some fairly good photos of the ceiling, especially the famous painting of God and Adam reaching out to touch the tip of each other’s index fingers! So cool.
After we’d gotten our fill of the Chapel, it was high time for lunch. We found a cute little restaurant and had our first yummy meal of real Italian pizza and pasta! Next, it was on to the Spanish Steps. They were pretty cool, though difficult to see because they were absolutely covered with people! Nevertheless, we found a free spot to sit, and spoke some Spanish with each other and with a random group next to us :-D It just had to be done, you know?
Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. I absolutely loved it! After soaking in the beauty for a moment, we muscled our way to the front, and each of us did the obligatory wish-and-coin-toss-over-the-shoulder. So much fun! I guess we’ll see if our wishes come true…
After the Fountain, it was getting to be time to eat again. We weren’t really sure where we wanted to go, so after some aimless searching, we decided to go back to the hostel to take a better look at the map and ask the front desk person for suggestions. We were hoping to find a McDonald’s (yes, I know, we are shameless…), but had been unsuccessful since we were in a more residential part of the city by the time we started searching. So Megan took a look in her Italy guidebook back at the hostel to see if she could find a likely area close by. She discovered that there was a little plaza not too far from our hostel, so we headed back out to find it. After locating it and looking around a bit, Megan spotted the sought-after McDonald’s sign down the street! This rivaled our McDonald’s moment in Paris for excitement – once again, good ol’ Mickey D’s didn’t disappoint :-D We really ought to write a nice letter to the CEO, or something. Anyway, we had a delicious (and cheap!) dinner there, and then had some still more delicious gelato from a nearby shop! Absolutely amazing. I had cappuccino, mint chip, and – get this – nutella flavors! Nutella and gelato are possibly the best things ever…so whoever thought to combine them is a genius! We took our gelato back to the middle of the plaza (or should I say, piazza) and sat eating it while listening to some rather skilled street performers. All in all, a successful evening and a great day!
The next day was Easter! It was definitely different from any other Easter of my existence. It was weird not going to church and being with my family, but it couldn’t be helped. It was early-to-rise again, and we headed to our first sight of the day, Palatino Hill. We went here first because Megan learned that the ticket you get is good for both the Hill and the Colosseum (which I apparently do not know how to spell…), but the line at the Hill is almost always shorter. And how – since it was early a rainy (the only day of bad weather during the whole trip!) Easter Sunday, the line was nonexistent! We got our tickets and explored the awesome ancient Roman ruins there, all the time wishing that our history major friends were there to tell us what we were looking at. It was still really pretty and interesting, though. Got a lot of great pictures!
After the Hill, it was Colosseum time! This was my favorite part of our time in Rome, and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. So astounding! And Megan was right about the ticket thing – we hardly had to wait at all, which was fantastic. The place was such an amazing sight. I can only imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday! And another aspect that I loved about the place was that they had a substantial exhibit with the history of the place, what it used to be like, what the shows consisted of, and what the people were like who went to see them. There were displays of what gladiator’s outfits probably looked like, as well as a good deal of information about them. I was absolutely fascinated! It was so nice to finally learn the history that went with what I was seeing – this happens surprisingly rarely during European travel, unless you’re rich enough to shell out the bucks for a tour or an audio-guide (which I am not). It was such great fun to take my time and read about all the super interesting stuff! I was wishing that my dad and brother and various history-loving guy-friends (you know who you are...) were there to geek out with me, but alas, I had to do so on my own. But it was still fun :-)
After touring the Colloseum in the cold and the rain, we were feeling quite chilled and ready for some lunch. Finding a pasta place of the type we were in the mood for proved rather more difficult than expected – I mean, it’s Rome…there ought to be such places on every corner, you’d think. But apparently not. After some searching, we finally found a place. We were all getting a bit crabby, so food was definitely in order. It was a pretty good place – I had some yummy lasagna and some wine. Rather more than I needed…I felt I ought to drink the whole ¼ of a liter, as I had paid for it. But I got a bit tipsier than I had planned on…oh well. Live and learn?
Once our bellies were full, it was time for the last sight of the day – the Pantheon. It was cool, but rather anti-climactic after the Colloseum, especially since the outside was half-covered with scaffolding because of restorations. This seems to happen to us a lot…it was still neat to see it, though. After that, we had no plans for the rest of the day, and ended up going back to the hostel for the afternoon. We napped and relaxed from about 4:00 to 8:00 in the evening. It was quite glorious, and just what we needed on a rainy afternoon. After that, it was time for more McDonald’s and gelato! Just as yummy as before, I might add. And then we went back to the hostel again to get ready to leave – we started the next leg of our journey in the morning. On to Florence!
Anyway, after two bus connections and some uncertain searching on some dark-ish streets, we were there. It was rather more adventure than we wanted at that point, but we made it safely. The hostel itself was great (even though the stairwell smelled strongly of cat) – it’s a converted convent and only women are allowed to stay there It was cute – all the artwork and such on the walls were photos of women, articles about women, and paintings done by or of women. No boys allowed! Which was sooo nice – after all the sketchy men we’ve seen on our travels, it was wonderful to feel safe and know that our roommates were for sure not going to try anything :-S And our room was so spacious and nice, with comfy beds and big closets to lock up our stuff. All in all a good choice for a three-night stay, I daresay! Anyway, all there was time for that night was some e-mail checking and some sleep, to get ready for a big day the next day.
On our first full day in Rome, we got up early to head to Vatican City! It was a short walk from our hostel, which was nice. We were instantly impressed with the outside courtyard (I’ll be able to recognize it on TV now!), and took some pictures as we waited in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. The line was fairly fast-moving, and we were in before we knew it. What an impressive building! It’s got to be one of the biggest structures I’ve ever seen, and so beautiful. After looking around inside for a bit, we headed over to the cupola to climb up. 551 dizzying and claustrophobic steps later, we were at the top! This was our second city view, and quite an impressive one. By the time we got back down, our legs were quite shaky, but it was worth it.
Next up was the Vatican Museum. The line for the Basilica may have been a breeze, but this one was decidedly not – we waited in a huge line along the wall for practically 3 hours. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest line I’ve ever been in! Thankfully we had some cookies and pumpkin seeds to tide us over while we waited, but we were more than ready to get inside when we finally got to the door. There were so many people inside! Not losing each other in the crowd proved to be a bit of a feat. After looking around a bit, we bypassed most of the museums because the only thing we really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel. We found the first sign for it and headed off. Little did we know, they herd you through a seemingly endless section of the museum before getting to the actual Chapel – every time I saw another sign for it, I thought, “Maybe it’s just around the bend!” But it wasn’t, for a very long time. It’s probably good because there might not be too many people who would look at that part of the museum if the setup were different. And at least there were cool things to look at. But it made us rather impatient after a while.
Anyway, 20 signs and a mile of museum (well, that’s what it felt like, anyway) later, we were in the Sistine Chapel! It was worth it, I daresay. Everyone says that it’s smaller than they thought it would be…I guess I’d have to agree with them there. It was very impressive, though, with a ceiling-full of gorgeous paintings by Michelangelo. There were guards patrolling and periodically shouting “No photos!” and “Quiet, please!” in English and Italian. Nobody listened, though. Including us…we sneaked some fairly good photos of the ceiling, especially the famous painting of God and Adam reaching out to touch the tip of each other’s index fingers! So cool.
After we’d gotten our fill of the Chapel, it was high time for lunch. We found a cute little restaurant and had our first yummy meal of real Italian pizza and pasta! Next, it was on to the Spanish Steps. They were pretty cool, though difficult to see because they were absolutely covered with people! Nevertheless, we found a free spot to sit, and spoke some Spanish with each other and with a random group next to us :-D It just had to be done, you know?
Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. I absolutely loved it! After soaking in the beauty for a moment, we muscled our way to the front, and each of us did the obligatory wish-and-coin-toss-over-the-shoulder. So much fun! I guess we’ll see if our wishes come true…
After the Fountain, it was getting to be time to eat again. We weren’t really sure where we wanted to go, so after some aimless searching, we decided to go back to the hostel to take a better look at the map and ask the front desk person for suggestions. We were hoping to find a McDonald’s (yes, I know, we are shameless…), but had been unsuccessful since we were in a more residential part of the city by the time we started searching. So Megan took a look in her Italy guidebook back at the hostel to see if she could find a likely area close by. She discovered that there was a little plaza not too far from our hostel, so we headed back out to find it. After locating it and looking around a bit, Megan spotted the sought-after McDonald’s sign down the street! This rivaled our McDonald’s moment in Paris for excitement – once again, good ol’ Mickey D’s didn’t disappoint :-D We really ought to write a nice letter to the CEO, or something. Anyway, we had a delicious (and cheap!) dinner there, and then had some still more delicious gelato from a nearby shop! Absolutely amazing. I had cappuccino, mint chip, and – get this – nutella flavors! Nutella and gelato are possibly the best things ever…so whoever thought to combine them is a genius! We took our gelato back to the middle of the plaza (or should I say, piazza) and sat eating it while listening to some rather skilled street performers. All in all, a successful evening and a great day!
The next day was Easter! It was definitely different from any other Easter of my existence. It was weird not going to church and being with my family, but it couldn’t be helped. It was early-to-rise again, and we headed to our first sight of the day, Palatino Hill. We went here first because Megan learned that the ticket you get is good for both the Hill and the Colosseum (which I apparently do not know how to spell…), but the line at the Hill is almost always shorter. And how – since it was early a rainy (the only day of bad weather during the whole trip!) Easter Sunday, the line was nonexistent! We got our tickets and explored the awesome ancient Roman ruins there, all the time wishing that our history major friends were there to tell us what we were looking at. It was still really pretty and interesting, though. Got a lot of great pictures!
After the Hill, it was Colosseum time! This was my favorite part of our time in Rome, and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. So astounding! And Megan was right about the ticket thing – we hardly had to wait at all, which was fantastic. The place was such an amazing sight. I can only imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday! And another aspect that I loved about the place was that they had a substantial exhibit with the history of the place, what it used to be like, what the shows consisted of, and what the people were like who went to see them. There were displays of what gladiator’s outfits probably looked like, as well as a good deal of information about them. I was absolutely fascinated! It was so nice to finally learn the history that went with what I was seeing – this happens surprisingly rarely during European travel, unless you’re rich enough to shell out the bucks for a tour or an audio-guide (which I am not). It was such great fun to take my time and read about all the super interesting stuff! I was wishing that my dad and brother and various history-loving guy-friends (you know who you are...) were there to geek out with me, but alas, I had to do so on my own. But it was still fun :-)
After touring the Colloseum in the cold and the rain, we were feeling quite chilled and ready for some lunch. Finding a pasta place of the type we were in the mood for proved rather more difficult than expected – I mean, it’s Rome…there ought to be such places on every corner, you’d think. But apparently not. After some searching, we finally found a place. We were all getting a bit crabby, so food was definitely in order. It was a pretty good place – I had some yummy lasagna and some wine. Rather more than I needed…I felt I ought to drink the whole ¼ of a liter, as I had paid for it. But I got a bit tipsier than I had planned on…oh well. Live and learn?
Once our bellies were full, it was time for the last sight of the day – the Pantheon. It was cool, but rather anti-climactic after the Colloseum, especially since the outside was half-covered with scaffolding because of restorations. This seems to happen to us a lot…it was still neat to see it, though. After that, we had no plans for the rest of the day, and ended up going back to the hostel for the afternoon. We napped and relaxed from about 4:00 to 8:00 in the evening. It was quite glorious, and just what we needed on a rainy afternoon. After that, it was time for more McDonald’s and gelato! Just as yummy as before, I might add. And then we went back to the hostel again to get ready to leave – we started the next leg of our journey in the morning. On to Florence!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Here We Go…Part I: Sevilla
All right, my friends. Are you ready for this? I haven’t blogged in quite some time, but I feel like I’ve been everywhere else in the meantime! I have so much to tell you about my grand Semana Santa adventure with my friends Megan and Lauren, so bear with me, because it’s going to take a while! But don’t worry – I’m doing it the smart way this time – we’re gonna take it city by city, so you don’t get overwhelmed. Okay, everyone ready? Follow me!
So. Our trip began with a train from Pamplona to Madrid. We generally take a bus for this always-necessary part of our journeys, but we happened to find a good deal for the train, which is about twice as fast, so we went for it! This was probably the most comfortable of our train rides during the trip – the train seemed pretty new, and they even showed a movie during the trip! It was The Painted Veil, which is one that I’ve wanted to see. It was very sad, but very good! Anyway, after a nice train ride, we had a bit of a wait until our bus to Sevilla. This was not quite as fun, as we had to travel from about 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., so we pretended to sleep, anyway. And Lauren and I had a panicked moment when the bus stopped at about 3:00 in the morning for a pit stop. When we got back out from the bathroom, the bus was nowhere to be seen! Thankfully, Megan had opted to stay on it, so we called her and she told us that the bus was just around the corner, getting gas. So after climbing on an identical bus that was not our own, we made it back on with plenty of time to spare. So it was an interesting night all around. But as a student traveler on a tight budget, sacrifices must be made.
And so we arrived in Sevilla, feeling a bit worn around the edges and in great need of showers, but we were there! We found our hostel without too much trouble and dropped our bags off. We couldn’t check in until 2:00 p.m., unfortunately, but we made the best of it by beginning our explorations in Sevilla’s Casco Viejo and doing a bit of souvenir shopping. We had a picnic lunch with some of the food we had with us (my host mom was overly generous as usual, which was a great help for the Sevilla part of the trip – saved us all a bunch of money!)
Finally, 2:00 arrived and we checked into our hostel, where we proceeded to take a 2-hour nap and then got cleaned up, at long last. After that, it was off to Casco Viejo again, in search of pasos, the floats and Easter processions that occupy the majority of Sevilla’s population during Semana Santa. They were amazing! It was so neat to see these huge floats with statues of Jesus or the Virgin Mary or both atop them, bobbing above the crowds. And all of the pasos were led and followed by Nazarenos, people in the traditional Easter-procession costume. They wear huge pointy hoods and flowy robes, and look very mysterious and cool! I might have to post a pic of them on here later, because it’s kind of hard to explain. And the music was fantastic – solemn and haunting and very compelling. I loved all the processions we got to watch – I’ve seen pictures and videos of similar things, but believe me when I tell you that it’s infinitely more awesome in person! Definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip.
On our second day in Sevilla, we slept in a bit (we were still recuperating…) and then met up with Kristen M. and Lise, who were beginning their tour of Southern Spain in Sevilla and were there the same time we were. It was so much fun to spend the day with them! We went to the Sevilla cathedral, which was very impressive both inside and out. Christopher Columbus’ tomb is located there, which was so cool to see! And there was a huge wall covered in gilded carvings of Bible stories…this also is rather hard to explain. But it was quite amazing! Another cool detail was that parts of the cathedral’s floors were heavily speckled with wax drops from the huge candles that the Nazarenos carry around – the candles drip while their owners are waiting to start their long walk (some processions went from 12:00 at night to 2:00 the next day! I have no idea how they do it). To finish up our cathedral trip, we climbed up La Giralda, the big bell tower there. Back in the days when the cathedral was a Muslim mosque, this tower was used for the five-times-daily call to prayer. From the top, we saw some very beautiful views of Sevilla! This was the first of many city views that we experienced. But more about that later.
After the cathedral, it was picnic time again! We found a comfortable spot in the park and ate a bit of lunch. After eating, we found a shady spot on the grass and just chilled there for over an hour. It was glorious! We all needed the time to relax. I love to take a break during the day when I’m traveling, I’ve found. Otherwise, I get worn out and burned out, and I can’t enjoy things as much. So our little pseudo-siesta was just the thing!
Next, it was off to see the murallas. These were fairly uninteresting – just more old Spanish walls, like many we’ve seen before. Still kind of interesting, though, and the walk through the pretty streets was nice. Especially because we made a stop for torrijas on the way! Torrijas are a very yummy treat that you can get in Spain around Easter-time. It’s sort of similar to French toast, though with honey and a ton of cinnamon and sugar. Almost too sweet, but very good. Also on the way, we had a great time looking at all the beautiful Spanish ladies in their traditional outfits – the black lace veil over the huge hair-comb, with a gorgeous little black dress. They all looked so stylish and beautiful and perfect – I just wanted to be one of them! Especially since it seemed like one of the requirements of the outfit was to have a gorgeous Spanish man on one’s arm. Heehee! :-D
We made our leisurely way back from the murallas, making a stop at Kristen M. and Lise’s hostel to use the internet and check out the pretty place where K and L were staying. Then, after a bit of dinner, it was time to go to the bar Carbonería for a free flamenco show! We had found it the night before, thankfully, so it wasn’t too hard to navigate the twisty streets a second time. Really though, Sevilla’s Casco Viejo is about ten times more confusing than Pamplona’s, which is saying something. They really didn’t think much of city planning back in the day. Anyway, we found our seats in the bar and waited for the show to start! Lise’s friend Basilio joined us there as well, so it was a lot of fun to see him and hear about his solo travels around Southern Spain up to that point.
The bar was really cool – though there were tourists, the place felt very genuine, and was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall, which was nifty. And the show itself was fantastic! There was a man playing guitar and another singing, and one woman who danced her heart out! Flamenco has got to be the most complicated, energy-draining dance I have ever beheld. It was so much fun to watch!
The next day, we didn’t do a whole lot, since we left on our plane for Rome in the early evening. So we got packed up (which took a while because we had to make sure that all of our bags passed Ryan Air’s rather stingy weight and size requirements…let’s just say we were all wearing a couple of extra articles of clothing) and went for a little walk along the bridge, while Lauren and Megan carried their towels so they would dry in the sun and weigh less in the suitcase later. We probably looked a bit comical, but oh well. Sometimes you just have to make do! Or lots of times, as we found out. Anyway, the walk was rather interesting…there were lots of people sleeping on the riverbank, presumably where they had collapsed after their nighttime shenanigans. And of course, lots of couples making out. Europeans are generally pretty free with the PDA, which makes things interesting sometimes. And the farther we walked, the sketchier things got, so we made a swift turn-around and headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags and get going. Then it was off to the bus stop to catch our ride to the airport. We had a bit of trouble finding the stop, but a nice young man (who spoke excellent English, as it turned out) saw us puzzling over our map and asked us if we needed help. We gratefully accepted, and he got us pointed in the right direction. We found it in time and plopped ourselves on a bench to wait, only to make a mad dash when the bus arrived earlier than we thought it would. Thankfully, it was a short distance and we made it in plenty of time.
Next, we got to the airport, made the weight limit by the skin of our teeth, breezed through security, and got on our plane to Rome! Our first RyanAir experience (well, Lauren’s and my first, anyway) was a success, I daresay, even though it involved a good deal of waiting in line and a bit of sweating over bags.
Stay tuned for Part II – Rome!
So. Our trip began with a train from Pamplona to Madrid. We generally take a bus for this always-necessary part of our journeys, but we happened to find a good deal for the train, which is about twice as fast, so we went for it! This was probably the most comfortable of our train rides during the trip – the train seemed pretty new, and they even showed a movie during the trip! It was The Painted Veil, which is one that I’ve wanted to see. It was very sad, but very good! Anyway, after a nice train ride, we had a bit of a wait until our bus to Sevilla. This was not quite as fun, as we had to travel from about 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., so we pretended to sleep, anyway. And Lauren and I had a panicked moment when the bus stopped at about 3:00 in the morning for a pit stop. When we got back out from the bathroom, the bus was nowhere to be seen! Thankfully, Megan had opted to stay on it, so we called her and she told us that the bus was just around the corner, getting gas. So after climbing on an identical bus that was not our own, we made it back on with plenty of time to spare. So it was an interesting night all around. But as a student traveler on a tight budget, sacrifices must be made.
And so we arrived in Sevilla, feeling a bit worn around the edges and in great need of showers, but we were there! We found our hostel without too much trouble and dropped our bags off. We couldn’t check in until 2:00 p.m., unfortunately, but we made the best of it by beginning our explorations in Sevilla’s Casco Viejo and doing a bit of souvenir shopping. We had a picnic lunch with some of the food we had with us (my host mom was overly generous as usual, which was a great help for the Sevilla part of the trip – saved us all a bunch of money!)
Finally, 2:00 arrived and we checked into our hostel, where we proceeded to take a 2-hour nap and then got cleaned up, at long last. After that, it was off to Casco Viejo again, in search of pasos, the floats and Easter processions that occupy the majority of Sevilla’s population during Semana Santa. They were amazing! It was so neat to see these huge floats with statues of Jesus or the Virgin Mary or both atop them, bobbing above the crowds. And all of the pasos were led and followed by Nazarenos, people in the traditional Easter-procession costume. They wear huge pointy hoods and flowy robes, and look very mysterious and cool! I might have to post a pic of them on here later, because it’s kind of hard to explain. And the music was fantastic – solemn and haunting and very compelling. I loved all the processions we got to watch – I’ve seen pictures and videos of similar things, but believe me when I tell you that it’s infinitely more awesome in person! Definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip.
On our second day in Sevilla, we slept in a bit (we were still recuperating…) and then met up with Kristen M. and Lise, who were beginning their tour of Southern Spain in Sevilla and were there the same time we were. It was so much fun to spend the day with them! We went to the Sevilla cathedral, which was very impressive both inside and out. Christopher Columbus’ tomb is located there, which was so cool to see! And there was a huge wall covered in gilded carvings of Bible stories…this also is rather hard to explain. But it was quite amazing! Another cool detail was that parts of the cathedral’s floors were heavily speckled with wax drops from the huge candles that the Nazarenos carry around – the candles drip while their owners are waiting to start their long walk (some processions went from 12:00 at night to 2:00 the next day! I have no idea how they do it). To finish up our cathedral trip, we climbed up La Giralda, the big bell tower there. Back in the days when the cathedral was a Muslim mosque, this tower was used for the five-times-daily call to prayer. From the top, we saw some very beautiful views of Sevilla! This was the first of many city views that we experienced. But more about that later.
After the cathedral, it was picnic time again! We found a comfortable spot in the park and ate a bit of lunch. After eating, we found a shady spot on the grass and just chilled there for over an hour. It was glorious! We all needed the time to relax. I love to take a break during the day when I’m traveling, I’ve found. Otherwise, I get worn out and burned out, and I can’t enjoy things as much. So our little pseudo-siesta was just the thing!
Next, it was off to see the murallas. These were fairly uninteresting – just more old Spanish walls, like many we’ve seen before. Still kind of interesting, though, and the walk through the pretty streets was nice. Especially because we made a stop for torrijas on the way! Torrijas are a very yummy treat that you can get in Spain around Easter-time. It’s sort of similar to French toast, though with honey and a ton of cinnamon and sugar. Almost too sweet, but very good. Also on the way, we had a great time looking at all the beautiful Spanish ladies in their traditional outfits – the black lace veil over the huge hair-comb, with a gorgeous little black dress. They all looked so stylish and beautiful and perfect – I just wanted to be one of them! Especially since it seemed like one of the requirements of the outfit was to have a gorgeous Spanish man on one’s arm. Heehee! :-D
We made our leisurely way back from the murallas, making a stop at Kristen M. and Lise’s hostel to use the internet and check out the pretty place where K and L were staying. Then, after a bit of dinner, it was time to go to the bar Carbonería for a free flamenco show! We had found it the night before, thankfully, so it wasn’t too hard to navigate the twisty streets a second time. Really though, Sevilla’s Casco Viejo is about ten times more confusing than Pamplona’s, which is saying something. They really didn’t think much of city planning back in the day. Anyway, we found our seats in the bar and waited for the show to start! Lise’s friend Basilio joined us there as well, so it was a lot of fun to see him and hear about his solo travels around Southern Spain up to that point.
The bar was really cool – though there were tourists, the place felt very genuine, and was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall, which was nifty. And the show itself was fantastic! There was a man playing guitar and another singing, and one woman who danced her heart out! Flamenco has got to be the most complicated, energy-draining dance I have ever beheld. It was so much fun to watch!
The next day, we didn’t do a whole lot, since we left on our plane for Rome in the early evening. So we got packed up (which took a while because we had to make sure that all of our bags passed Ryan Air’s rather stingy weight and size requirements…let’s just say we were all wearing a couple of extra articles of clothing) and went for a little walk along the bridge, while Lauren and Megan carried their towels so they would dry in the sun and weigh less in the suitcase later. We probably looked a bit comical, but oh well. Sometimes you just have to make do! Or lots of times, as we found out. Anyway, the walk was rather interesting…there were lots of people sleeping on the riverbank, presumably where they had collapsed after their nighttime shenanigans. And of course, lots of couples making out. Europeans are generally pretty free with the PDA, which makes things interesting sometimes. And the farther we walked, the sketchier things got, so we made a swift turn-around and headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags and get going. Then it was off to the bus stop to catch our ride to the airport. We had a bit of trouble finding the stop, but a nice young man (who spoke excellent English, as it turned out) saw us puzzling over our map and asked us if we needed help. We gratefully accepted, and he got us pointed in the right direction. We found it in time and plopped ourselves on a bench to wait, only to make a mad dash when the bus arrived earlier than we thought it would. Thankfully, it was a short distance and we made it in plenty of time.
Next, we got to the airport, made the weight limit by the skin of our teeth, breezed through security, and got on our plane to Rome! Our first RyanAir experience (well, Lauren’s and my first, anyway) was a success, I daresay, even though it involved a good deal of waiting in line and a bit of sweating over bags.
Stay tuned for Part II – Rome!
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