Almalfi Coast: Sorrento, Capri Island, Pompeii 8)

We arrived in Naples around 4pm on Friday. Even though Naples is probably one of the sketchiest places I have ever been it was so warm I couldn’t wait to get to the beaches in Sorrento. We took a tram ride for about 45 minutes to Sorrento; little did we know we had to get off the stop before at S. Angello because it was much closer to our hostel. Of course with my luck I was the last one in line to get off and the door closed right in front of me. Luckily some nice Italian men told me I could get off at the next sop and take the tram back in the direction I came from. The turn around was so quick I caught up with my group just as we arrived at Seven Hostel. I was relieved everyone I asked for directions were very nice. I got there before dark thankfully so panic never had a chance to set in. There were only 8 of us but the hostel employee gave us a 10 bedroom to our selves. I was shocked when I saw what we were walking in to. First of all the downstairs had a terrace with outdoor couches and tables to hang out and have drinks or just relax. Then we walked up to the second level which balconied to the terrace to our room, the SUGAR suite. The room was huge and according to Claire “temperputic beds.” At this point I was starving. I hadn’t really planned well and only ate breakfast at 8am and had nothing since then. We ate dinner in the terrace. I ordered Fettuccine Alfredo. Although the portions were small it hit the spot. After dinner we attempted to get our favorite Italian desert, gelato. However it was closed by the time we got to the gelateria so we waked to the nearby supermarcato and I got a pack of Stella’s, my new favorite beer. We took them back to our hostel. Oh yeah I forgot to say how we have a huge rooftop with lounge chairs that are lit up at night. We brought our blankets and beers to the roof and lay there enjoying the view of Sorrento at night. It was very relaxing after traveling all day.
We woke up early and could not wait to get outside in the sunny weather! I put on shorts yes SHORTS finally, a t-shirt, flip flops and of course my new Fedora, which by the way im obsessed with. We hit up the free breakfast, the usual croissant, cereal, and makeshift orange juice and got on our way. We walked along the water to the heart of Sorrento. Along the way grabbing a few oranges off the hundreds of orange and lemon trees we passed along the way. I could not believe the color of the water, it was the most gorgeous blue/teal water I have ever seen. After about a half hour of walking we found the most amazing kiwi gelato I have ever had. I got half kiwi half strawberry. YUMM ☺!! We walked around the shops in Sorrento then walked down the harbor where a bunch of boats were docked and the beaches. We took a ferry over to the island of Capri. I sat there with the biggest smile on my face. I couldn’t be happier to be on the water. It took about 20 minutes to get to Capri; at this point I didn’t even want to get off, until I saw the beauty of Capri. It was a gorgeous Island. Once we got off we sat down under the sun and enjoyed a Margarita Pizza and a tasty Peroni. We walked into a sandal maker shop, which was pretty cool. They made sandals to form to your feet. Then we walked along the beach till we reached sfskdjdj with huge boulders. We climbed up them and laid out for while soaking up the sun, I even passed out for a little while. It was so relaxing to just lay with the water crashing next to me and the warmth of the sun, I could have laid there all day. As I got up to get off the rock my sunglasses that were hanging in my shirt fell in between the rocks and out of sight. My first reaction was “BYE SUNGLASSS!!” then I looked down and saw a beer bottle and thought to myself maybe if I get them back. I lowered myself in between the huge rocks and squatted down and after a few attempts was able to reach my sunglasses, but before I did Bama yelled, “watch out for the SCORPIANS!” I laughed it off not thinking it was a big deal until when we got back to the hostel and Greg told us about how we saw a scorpion earlier. I was glad I didn’t see any other wise I might have had a heart attack. We took the Ferry back after a few hours in Capri. By this point all the walking and sun had exhausted me. We took our time walking back to the hostel, letting my surroundings soak in. I wish we could be here for longer it was such a nice change of pace. The most relaxing and warmest weather I’ve experienced since I have been in Europe. We ate another delicious meal the hostel and got drinks and hung out at the bar where there was live music and a bunch of people. After a little while we went back to the room where Greg got everyone hooked on Chess leading to game after game the rest of the night. Before going to bed we went up to the roof again and finished our beers, and in Greg’s and Meeks case their 5-liter Jug.
We woke up fairly early on Sunday. Unfortunately daylight savings just started in Europe so we lost an hour of precious sleep. We packed up our stuff and disposed of the many wine/beer bottles all over the room and were on our way. We decided to stop at Pompeii on the way home and I’m glad we did. It was Sunny and 70 degrees, who wouldn’t want to walk around and look at ruins? To my surprise they were much more interesting then I imagined. I took a booklet that explained each part and preened to be our tour guide for the group. It was fun and I actually learned what the remains from the volcanic eruption once were. My favorite part had to have been the large amphitheatre. I couldn’t believe how large it was and how much of it was still standing. Greg and Cham snuck in the stands part and climbed the top. Then they logged rolled the bottom. I was laughing so hard because they both rolled into the same ditch right after each other. As we walked around through the ruins on huge rocks there were a couple dogs (Carnes) following us around. Apparently Pompeii takes in theses stray dogs and people that come and visit the excavations site can adopt them. If Greg had a choice I’m sure he would have brought one back to Lugano with us. We spent about 3 hours before heading to Naples to catch our train. I stopped for some Pizza (of course because it originated in Naples) before getting on the train. Me and Steph played our first real game of Chess without any help then passed out till we got to Milan then finally Lugano. This weekend was so nice and relaxing, and I even got a little tan along the way. Now I just have to get through 4 more days of class, thank God for Migros Mondays!

LON DON!

Spring Break '10: Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam

My Birthday

March 4^th, my 21^st birthday. Great way to start a birthday with a final in Marketing Research. At least it wasn’t very difficult. I finished around 11am. Just in time for the Mexican Restaurant to open up. I went there with Steph, Claire, and Meredith to get Margaritas so find half my class there to celebrate with me. It was a great surprise; I had no idea Claire sent out a facebook event to the whole class called “Margs for Meg.” I had a couple margaritas and shared chicken quesadillas with Steph. It was delicious; I forgot how much I missed my weekly trip to el rods. After lunch we went to the park and sat along to the water and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Right as we walked back, Greg’s little, Brandon, had just arrived in Lugano to spend his spring break with us. Then we went to enjoy Pavlov’s amazing cooking. After dinner we got on a train to Zurich then connected to our overnight sleeper train. In our coquette were Me and Claire on the top bunk. Steph and Brandon on the middle bunk and Cory and Emily on the bottom bunk. To my luck Brandon had the worst smelling feet and he slept right below me. After a minor panic attack to try to get fresh air by opening up the window, I managed to fall asleep. Next thing I new it was 8am and we were in Budapest, Hungary.

BUDAPEST

Once we got off the train we searched for the nearest ATM. The currency was Krowns. I took out the equivalent of 100 USD, which equals 20,000 Kc’s! I felt weird holding a thousand dollar bill even if it only was worth 5$. Once everyone got out money we took a bus to our hostel. Our hostel called Suite Hostel was indeed a Sweet Hostel or Apartment you could say. The ten of us walked in to a living room with couch and TV, bathroom, and kitchen. Then we walked up the stairs to our bedroom and another full bathroom. It was a shock to us to have such a nice place to stay for nearly 12$ a night. By this time we were all starving. In our attempt to avoid kebabs and fast food we managed to find a Subway! I tried to order my usual, a Chicken Bacon Ranch but of course they had no idea what I was saying so I settled with a turkey sub. After indulging we walked across the dhadsfhs bridge, which was much more difficult then I thought. The wind nearly blew me into traffic. We ventured up a huge hill to the top of the sljkjkfla castle. From here you could see the whole town of Budapest. We headed back to the hostel after a few hours. We napped and showered before going out. We walked past the shops before we ended up stopping at a bar called Fat Moe’s. Little did we know it was jazz night. We got drinks and I got an amazing Caesar salad. Brandon and Steph started dancing to Elvis it was entertaining to watch. On our walk home we soon realized that the bar we were at was right around the corner but somehow it took us 20 minutes to find it. We will figure out how to get around sooner or later.

The next morning the girls all went shopping. First we went to the Budapest market. It had every souvenir and authentic Hungarian food imaginable. We wandered for about an hour and bought a “secret box.” This is a very popular authentic souvenir that has you move and shift and take out about 5 different things which finally unveils a key that opens the box. Me and steph found our new favorite store MANGO, and quickly became obsessed. I bought a few things then kept shopping till we met up with the guys for a free walking tour. Many of the tours we have been on were very good, this one however was horrible. Our tour guide was so boring we ended up leaving 15 minutes into the tour. We decided to use the map and see the things on our own, including the Parliament and St. Peters church. After touring around the city we went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. We were recommended to go to the For Sale Pub so we decided to check it out. When we walked in there were peanuts on every table and it was the kind of place you throw your shells on the ground. This was my type of restaurant! Most of the group of the traditional Hungarian meal, Beef Goulash but it didn’t look very appealing to be so I got grilled chicken and veggies, which was delicious! We went back to the hostel and pregamed in our little apartment playing card games and blasting music. We were getting ready to go to the famous Turkish Baths. Luckily we came at the right time and there was a party that night that only happens twice a year in the Rudas Bath “Winnie da pool” where hundreds of young people come to party in the water. This was much different to the ones that you go to during the day where old men sit there in barley nothing. We got our suits on and left for the baths around 12:00. When we got to the pool there was a line out the door of people dying to get it. We knew at this point it was defiantly worth waiting for. About a half hour later we got in, paid our 7000 Forint’s (35 USD) and were handed a big blue trash bag to put our dry clothes in and a wristband. We were so excited that we ran to the locker room, stripped down to our bikinis and headed for the pools. There were 3 dry rooms where people were dancing in their bathing suits, then came the pool. It was HUGE and everyone was ravin’. We jumped in and to my surprise is was really warm. Hundreds of people were standing in the pool and around the edge of the pool dancing. It was INSANE! There was a circus acrobat show going on with fire performers when we got there, then a light show, and eventually a shower of water there followed us over the entire pool. It was a crazy night but Im glad I went! Around 4 AM we decided to head home. So we got our trash bags of clothes, changed and trekked across the bridge.

The next morning we woke up around 11 am, we were pretty tired from the night before. We looked outside and it was SNOWING! UGH! So we weren’t really in the mood to do any sightseeing in that weather. So we decided to wander a little bit around town. We stopped in some clothing stores, and then into some other souvenir shops. After about an hour we stopped into a restaurant which had a title “100 type of beers,” of course we couldn’t pass that up. So we stopped in there, I got a DELCIOUS chicken caesar salad and tomato soup. After the meal we headed back to the hotel and hung out a little more, watched some TV in the main room, and played some cards. After this Brandon, Greg, Claire, Steph, Meeks and I decided we were going to go out to a bar, apparently this bar we were planning to go to was in tact during World War II. Half of the bar was destroyed during the war, but the other was still in tact so we were really excited. Before we left Steph, Claire and I got some traditional Hungarian bread. It was thinly twirled dough covered in cinnamon. It was PHENOMINAL. The walk from our hotel to the bar was not far at all, it did however take us down an extremely sketchy ally. When we got inside it was so interesting. There were so many different things left over from the war. There were letters, weapons, pictures all over used as decorations. There was also an upstairs, which had another bar, but it looked over the rest of the bottom floor. We had a couple beers, but we were mainly there to see the bar. So around midnight we headed home, because we had a 5:30 train to catch! Except after we got home Meeks, Greg, and Brandon decided their night wasn’t over so they headed to the strip club. When they got back they were bumping all around the room knocking things over, and Meeks thought it was a great idea to use his lighter to see his way around the room. Cory shot out of bed thinking that he was smoking a cigarette in our room. By this time it was around 3:30 and we had to wake up in an hour… great. So in an hour everyone was pretty tired but we were all yelling to get up I kind of threw everything in my backpack and walked downstairs. From there we had to carry our stuff downstairs. The lights went out as we were lugging everything and I hear meeks shout “AW S**T.” And we heard him slamming down the stairs, and he was like 5th person that weekend to fall down those dreaded stairs. I lugged my hiking backpack to the metro where we got on our train, where I PASSED OUT all the way to Prague.

PRAGUE

After a 7hour train ride we were all distraught when we got to Prague. We exited the train and took the tram to our hostel only 3 stops away. The “Czech Inn” looked like one of the nicest hostels we have ever stayed at. Our room was even better. It had 10 beds in it we had 2 sinks and a marble covered bathroom. We dropped off our bags then walked down the street to a restaurant were I got a pizza with cream sauce broccoli and chicken. I usually can’t eat the whole thing but today I was especially hungry. Coincidently the other group traveling through Eastern Europe was in Prague the same night and at the same hostel. This rarely happens so we decided to all go out that night. I booked a reservation for 23 at the Beer Factory. We got ready and went to happy hour at the bar on the bottom level of our hostel. Once everyone was done getting ready we walked to the tram stop toward the bar/club. The Beer Factory was a huge place with beer taps coming through the middle of the table with 4 spouts. We had 3 tables next to each other. Each table had a number on it and the number showed up on a big screen showing how many liters your table had drank. This of course led to competition within our group. I sat with Claire, Steph, Laura, Kyle, Meghan, Julia, and Chris Stahl. We weren’t much into the competition; instead we drank, laughed, and played drinking games. After a few hours a couple of us followed Meghan’s friend in Prague to an underground bar. When we walked in it looked like a small bar with not many people in it, unit I realized the stairs going down to another level, then more stairs another level, and another and another till we were finally at the bottom. It was small but lively. I got a drink called Caipiroska it was vodka squeezed limes and brown sugar. It sounds random but it was tasty. Claire and me shared a taxi home, stopping at pizza Roma to get a gyro first.

The next morning it was hard to wake up, we finally got up and went downstairs for breakfast. We went into Old Times Square and took the free walking tour. Along the way we saw pretty much all of Prague from the square to the Jewish ghetto and church’s. We stopped at Bohemian Bagel about half way through the tour. I got a turkey club on a bagel. It was delicious and too big to finish. We finished the tour around sunset. Being that we are rebels are never buy tickets for the tram, we got on the metro like usual. When we were getting off the metro, a line of police officers were standing at the gate, and began to ask us for tickets one by one. C-ham and Christian whipped around and went back down the escalator. While none of us had tickets on us, the ticket man started to give us a speech. He then took us to an ATM so we could get out money because a fine was 700 crowns. We were going to go shopping but after this escapade we just wanted to go home. We once again rested after a big day of walking around. That night we drank in the hostel for a little bit, and then we headed to the 5 story club. Maybe it was because it was a Tuesday night, but it was pretty empty. I even saw the village men… so the girls tried to dance on the dance floor but then about 20 men flocked to us so we ran away. Then Claire and I decided to be bold, and sat down with a group of about 5 guys. They were all from Switzerland and were in the Swiss army. They fed us drinks for the rest of the night. Around 3:30 Claire and I decided to leave so we went out and got a taxi. We stopped in front of the train station. When we got out and paid, we saw a bright light… like a sign from God… PIZZARIA. We hurried inside and got ourselves a big old GYRO. As we were chowing down we were staring out the window, when before I knew it, I was making eye contact with steph. They had the SAME idea we did. Late night food is the best. After we all finished eating we finished our walk home.

The next morning Claire and I were extremely groggy, but we knew breakfast was ending in an hour. So we rolled out of bed, grabbed our 120 crowns and shuffled downstairs. After we feasted we came back upstairs and went back to bed for a little bit. Everyone except for us decided to get up and get food and “Bohemian Bagel,” a restaurant that we ate at the day before. Claire and I said that we would meet the rest at Starbucks at 1:45pm before the Castle Tour started. When we got to Starbucks we waited until 2 for them. After we bought our tickets for the tour, we still held up the group and had the owner of the tours wait for our friends. After 30 more minutes he said we couldn’t wait any longer… so after feeling very defeated and humiliated Claire and I walked to meet the rest of the tour group. Our tour guide Katka, complained most of the tour about how hung-over and tired she was. Don’t get me wrong I like a fun tour, but her cursing and vulgarity was a bit much… I learned a lot about the castle, and we got some amazing views over the city of Prague. We were even taken to the castle monetary where they brew their own beer! No where else in the world could you get the same brew! And they had a special Lenten beer, which I tried in the large class of course. After the tour Claire and I headed stopped at KFC, then home to meet up with the other retards who didn’t make it on the tour. Meeks, Stephanie, Greg, Emily, Cory, and Brandon went to a sports bar to watch the Man U v. A.C. Milan game on TV. While Claire, Scott, C-ham, Christian, James and Yimmy went to a casino. After 30 minutes of slots, we decided to get on the tram and go to a bar someone had recommended. Unfortunately we got on the wrong tram, but there was an American who lived In Prague who was going to the same bar, Chapeau Rouge, so he led us the rest of the way there, with his new friend from Holland… the bar we went to was so cool. It was 3 levels. The first was just a regular bar. Then downstairs was a dance club and bar. Then the next level down was an underground rave. The only reason I went to the bottom floor was for the 28 crown beers! NICE. But Claire and I actually met a nice kid from Tennessee, who goes to Notre Dame, but was studying in London. We talked to him for almost 30 minutes. But after a while we were pretty tired, so we got in a cab and headed home. The next morning Claire and I (geeeeeez we’ve been spending a lot of time together on this trip), got up early and packed up all our stuff and took it to the luggage room. There was some site seeing that the others had done, that we hadn’t so we got up early to finish it before our night train. We saw the John Lennon wall, which is an entire wall with quotes and drawings from all over the world. We had to make our mark too! On our tour the day before we were told about a monument made, where two men were "peeing on prague." It had the option of texting a number and they would spell it out with their pee! So of course we had to see that! After this we went to the Jewish ghetto. After walking around souvenier shopping we got on a tram. Next thing I knew my arm was being tapped asking for my ticket. OH NO, NOT AGAIN. Claire and I both had tickets in our purse that we hadn’t validated. But to them not being validated meant no ticket. But Claire and I weren’t going to give up so easily. The local American who we met the night before said he’d been caught 35 times and had never paid. So the man grabbed my arm when she went to validate her ticket, he then said to get off at the next stop. He asked for ID and we stupidly gave our hokie P’s. He then told us we had to pay another 700 crowns. And we said NO. He then said he was calling the police, and got on the phone and talked in Czech to someone. Claire and I were just walking away from him and he was just following us down the road muttering about the police. He even grabbed my arm when I tried to walk away. After about 25 minutes of him following us around Prague we were at a corner, all of a sudden he spotted a police car and shouted “WAIT HERE. I GET POLICE. POLICE. POLICE.” He started running to get the police. Right then I yelled “CLAIRE RUNNNNNNNNN.” As soon as we could we ducked into a small watch shop. Our hearts were racing and we were freaking out. I then told me to take off her lime green coat ASAP. After we realized we couldn’t stay in there forever we started to walk down the road, terrified we would find that scary guy again. We flagged down a taxi as soon as we could and took it to the main train station. When we got out there were police everywhere and we panicked! We started darting down side alleys and we got pretty lost but FINALLY we were home. Unfortunately we never got our Hokie passports back but we were back and safe. We sat in the hostel bar drinking a big beer until everyone got home. Before we left for our train we got some Chinese food. Claire and I walked with our hoods up the entire way to the train, and we DEFINITELY had validated tickets. We safely got on our night train ready for our crazy last stop. AMSTERDAMMMMM

AMSTERDAM

We couldn’t check in to the hostel. So we put our luggage in the bar until we could check in, then decided to head into town for some food. We stopped at the “Pancake Corner.” Apparently Amsterdam was really famous for their pancakes so we had to try it out. The guys said screw food we’re going right to the coffee shop. So the girls got a table. I order a large glass of Orange Juice and a Pancake filled with mushrooms, cheese, & Bacon! When the food came out the pancakes were nothing like I was used to. It looked more like an oversized crepe than a pancake, but so DELICIOUS! After devouring our food. We headed across the street to the underground coffee shop. We picked up some goods, and hung out there for a while. After we were done there, we walked back towards our hostel, but stopped at the House of Bols museum. It cost 13 Euro to get in. we got to walk around reading about the founding of Bols. There were also taste strips that were vanilla and mint. Except for being liquid it was only the smell of the vodka, with the type hidden behind a flap. After we smelled everything we headed upstairs, for our free cocktail! We each got to pick from a long list of cocktails, and we crowded around our table. C-ham was last to come over with his drink and when he did everyone started laughing, because he was the ONLY ONE who had gotten a cocktail, in a martini glass! He was so embarrassed and flustered that right when he got to the table, he sloshed half of his drink on the table. Obviously he proceeded to complain the rest of the time there. As well Brandon was paranoid thinking that the bartender didn’t want him there. After our free drinks we got to pick two liquor shots. I picked kiwi and Mango MMHMMM. After Bols we walked back to our hostel. But before we reached our hostel we stopped at the big “I AMSTERDAM” letters. They were HUGE. We took a big group picture, each peeking out from behind a letter, but we realized afterwards we were on the wrong side… we tried to get some pictures but it was pretty occupied by some Spaniards. After a couple hours we showered and got ready for the night. We got ready and headed back into town. We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Claire, Steph and I split a pitcher of margaritas. Our table ordered a basket of guacamole and within a matter of seconds it was GONE. There was not a moment where hands weren’t flying from chips to guac. Of course when the waitress came back we ordered another basket. I got a little fajita after that. When we were finished and paid. We went outside looking for a place to drink a bit. We saw a sign of 10 shots of jager for 10 dollars. YEP. We walked inside and the first thing we saw on TV was a basketball game. We looked a little closer and realized VIRGINIA TECH WAS PLAYING!!!!!!!! We flipped out and immediately posted up at the bar. After a couple hours, we walked to club Paradiso. The line was pretty long so we decided against it.

The next morning we got up kind of early, because we had a lot of site seeing to do, before we left, we ate some of the sub- par free breakfast. Side note: EVERYONE in Amsterdam rides bikes. There are 10 times more bike lanes than there are sidewalks. Hardly anyone takes public transit or drives. We all walked to meet up with Josh. We stopped in burger king before the day. We then spotted whirley and his brother, who looked exactly like him. We walked towards the Anne Frank house. It was pretty far, and Josh’s brother warned us it would be a pretty long line, but we decided to check it out anyways. When we got there of course, there was a line all the way around the building. So we decided to pass the time by going to a coffee shop for a bit, near the red light district. We stayed there “hanging out” for about an hour and then I got a muffin to go, and we walked back to the Anne Frank house. The line was just about as long as before and so we just stood in line. It only took about 20 minutes, and then it was 8 Euro once we got inside. It was so surreal actually being in the house when the Franks lived. The house was surprisingly larger than I imagined. When you walked past the bookshelf, to get to the second floor, you had to walk up the STEEPEST flight of stairs ever, I practically crawled up the stairs. At the top there were little blurbs about the house, and a couple artifacts. But once again the room up there was pretty big. Once we were done at the house, we decided to go to the Van Gough museum. This was 14 Euros to get into the museum. I had JUST eaten a muffin. So the artwork was absolutely amazing. They even had different artists, like Monet and Picasso in the museum. Then we headed back to our hostel, and showered up. When we were ready we headed back to town. We went to the RED LIGHT DISTRICT! It was UNREAL. We first stopped into a place that said “PEEP SHOW 2 Euro”. We were all for it until we found out that we had to sit through the live sex show ALONE. In our own little box… we said no thanks. We also had the option of going to a theatrical version of the show, but that would be 25 Euro. So we kept walking. Also the prostitution was CrAzY. You literally would walk down the street and there would be a girl in a bathing suit knocking on the window waving you in. but on some of the side streets there were the downgraded version of the main strip girls. After we took the scene in, we went back to town. We tried out a couple different bars, and walked by Paradiso again. Then finally we went to a bar called Pirates which was PACKED but when we paid cover, guys got a free beer while girls got a free shot. It was a fun bar but after a while we were tired of being sardines. Side note from this bar: the Cha Cha slide music video is slightly pornographic, found that out the hard way. After we left here, we were all pretty tired, and it had gotten pretty late, so we headed home.

The next morning we had a train ALL DAY. Our train left at 11, so we woke up early, and went back to the coffee shop for some goodies. Not without stopping in Burger King again. Our train ride was around 12 hours long so Steph and I decided to get “SPACEY!” When we got to our second to last stop we were FAMISHED and only had 10 minutes for an opportunity of food. WE RAN to a pizza place, and hopped back on the train with a few minutes to spare. Within a couple hours we were home sweet Montarina.

Florence! Ciao Bella

Finally it was Friday, time to travel once again. But before doing anything I had to take my Italian-speaking exam with Magda. Since Magda was behind and we had a train to catch Claire and I went in together, it was pretty easy and Magda laughed at pretty much everything we TRIED to say in Italian then gave us hugs and told us our grade is very positive! I am defiantly going to miss that lady, she somehow made a 3 hour class at 9 in the morning entertaining. I ran home after the exam showered and packed up my sexy hiking backpack for FLORENCE! I was so excited for good weather and to see my parents again! We arrived in Florence around 5pm and wandered around till we found the hostel, which was conveniently located near my parents’ suite. My parents came to meet me and brought me to their room, which was huge. It had a huge bed, couch, TV, bathroom with a Badai, and full kitchen! It was such a treat from the usual smelly hostels that we usually stay at. I changed out of my traveling clothes and we went to dinner in the Piazza del signora (right outside of their hotel). It was amazing, as all Italian food is. I was so happy to be with my parents at a nice restaurant. We split a bottle of Chianti and I had spinach and ricotta filled tortellini in a truffle sauce. Truffles are like a fancy and tastier mushroom, it was DELICIOUS! After dinner Mom went to bed and me and Dad met up with the rest of the crew. We walked down the street to an Irish Pub called Lions Fountain. Dad bought the first round of beers for the group and the bartender gave us all a free shot. Then Greg even bought shots of Gin for him Meeks and Dad. After a few hours we decided to head back to the hotel, Of course we stopped at a Kebab place on the way home where Greg got one. He made my dad try it and he even enjoyed it. We woke up around 10am the next morning to go sight seeing and shopping. First we saw the Duomo, which is the 3^rd largest church in Italy. After walking through the church and seeing Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the dome we walked up the 414 steps to the top of the Campinile aka bell tower right next to the Duomo. The stairs were narrow and steep and we were all out of breathe by the time we go to the top but it was worth it. I could see all of Florence and the top of the Duomo. We lucked out, it was 60 degrees and sunny in Firenze and even hotter at the top of the tower. We took pictures and soaked up the sun for a while before coming to the bottom. After all the climbing we stopped for Gelato, which originated in Florence. I got half limone and half fragolia (lemon & strawberry) it was very refreshing. Then we walked 5 minutes down the road to the Michael Angelo museum. There we saw lots of famous statues by Lorenzo, Monaco, and of course the DAVID by Michelangelo. I expected it to be the same size as us but it was HUGE!! I could stop staring at it. Around the same area was Piazza Santa Croce. There we all sat down for lunch a restaurant. It was so nice out we sat outside. I got Spaghetti carbonara and everyone else got pizza and even our sodas came with ice! We were all very satisfied. After lunch we walked down via del corso, which is were all the shopping is. I bought a pink silk scarf and we window-shopped for a while. My mom went into a souvenir shop and the gates closed on her, she freaked out, it was hilarious! Then we walked along the river and crossed over by the Old Bridge or Ponte Vecchio. We walked up a bunch of steps to the top where we had a full view of the city at sunset. It was gorgeous! We took lots of pics and bought souvenirs and I got my “Ciao Bella” shirt I was dying to find! I went back to the hotel to get ready for my early birthday dinner. We all got dressed up and went to a restaurant called il Latini. It must have been a popular place because when we walked up to the entrance it was crowded with people trying to get in. Good thing pops got us a reservation. It was a family style restaurant, so we started off with 2 liters of red wine for the table. Then our appetizers came, which included various slices of meat, bread, peppers filled with mushrooms, chicken liver and other random food. We weren’t even finished with the second course came out; pasta. We got 3 types of pasta; one was ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta in a red sauce, penne in a meat sauce, and a flat noodle in a cream sauce. We all indulged, then the rabbit came, which we were all excited for except for my parents because they haven’t had Pavlov’s (our chefs) delicious rabbit. Then they came out with an assortment of deserts and a piece of pie with a candle in it and everyone sang happy birthday. I even got a free bottle of Chianti from the restaurant! After eating we all received shots of whiskey and lemon cello. We went to the Red Garter after dinner and got some beers before heading back to the hotel. The next morning my parents went to Venice and I went to Pisa for the day to see the leaning tower. We took a bunch of pictures then headed back to Swissyland.

Vienna, Austria!

We left for Vienna, on a night train sometime around 6pm to Zurich. After an hour layover we then got on the night train and had those horrible sleeper seats. We got to Vienna around 8:30 AM and headed to our hostel, which was only about a 5 minute walk. It was pretty cold when we got there, and it was raining and snowing. Yet again we couldn’t check in until around noon. So we put our backpacks in the lockers and were ready to head out. We decided that our first stop would be food though, Kebabs for breakfast? Yep. So after we finished up we headed to the Summer Palace. This was a HUGE house home to, what we were told was Marie Antoinette, in the summer time. It had so many rooms, but it was more that 8€ to even walk in. so we decided instead to walk around the outside and see the grounds. It was pretty cold and dreary, but it looked like it would be a wonderful place when the ground was green and flowers had bloomed. We took a long walk up a huge hill and when we were at the top we got an amazing view of Vienna. By then it had stopped raining and we could get some great pictures. At the top of this hill there was even a very fancy restaurant. After we were finished at the Summer Palace, we went back to the hostel to take a quick nap, or so we thought… next thing we knew it was dark outside, and Meeks was coming out of the shower. We then realized it was almost 6 PM! Greg yelled “everyone get up! We have limited amount of sunlight! We need to see things still!” So we started to get up pretty quickly and got dressed. We decided the best thing to do would be to go to the opera. We took a metro and ended up right in front of it. We saw men in pressed suits, and women in cocktail dresses and fur coats. We wanted to go in but we felt pretty out of place. We went in just to see for fun how much it would be to get a ticket. Turns out it was only 3€ to stand at the top. So we each had a one-person section to stand in, with a little electronic monitor in front of us that we set to English, so that the opera could be translated for us. The room was huge with a beautiful chandelier, and we had a great view of all the people in the fancy outfits. As much as I was skeptical about seeing an opera, it was amazing. Even without the translation, you could understand what was happening, because of the music and emotions. After about an hour we were pretty hungry, and tired of fighting for a place to stand and see, so we left at intermission. We walked through the streets and saw another huge gothic church called Stephensdom pretty similar to the Glockenspiel. After picking up a couple souvenirs, we headed home. We stopped into a little food place. We all got wiener schnitzels with French fries and it was DELCIOUS, and cheap. After that we went home for some showering and freshening up. It was pretty late and all of the girls weren’t ready until around 11pm. We didn’t really know where to go so we went to Wombat’s the hostel where the other group of girls were staying. They weren’t there so instead we took a couple jager bombs. We asked the guy at the front where to go out, and he gave us some directions but we didn’t really follow them. We walked until we found a bar, but there were two people coming out talking in English. They told us that they were from Texas and that the bar we were about to go to was way over priced and really boring. So they had heard of another bar and we just followed them. We walked in and it was pretty crowded. We sat down at an empty table and happened to sit in a huge group of Americans! They had only been studying there about a week, but we got drinks and sat talking to them for couple hours, meeting their friends. Before we knew it was after 3 AM! So we finished up our last drinks and headed home. But before we reached our hostel, we got more kebabs. We woke up the next morning pretty early; we had a train at 9:30. We got on that train without reservations, so the boys found an empty luggage room to sit in for the 6 hours. Luckily all of the girls found seats. We ate nothing; we were starving within the first hour. And then about 4 hours in the train conductor came over the intercom speaking in German, and everyone was laughing. After a couple more languages he came on in English saying, “the engine is not good, we stay here a little”… greattttttt. So after almost an 10 hour train ride, were finally in Zurich. We looked up at the train times, and realized we had 10 minutes or 2 hours. We were so hungry, but we didn’t want to miss the train. The boys sprinted to the kebab stand, while the girls grabbed the first thing we saw (some odd square pizza). The train was right behind the food so we sprinted on to the first second-class car we saw. Looking around we didn’t know if the boys would make it, but right before they blew the whistle the guys jumped on, with kebabs in hand. And in about 2 hours we were back in the Montarina!

Week Break #1: Paris, Rome, & Venice!

PARIS

I packed up by hiking backpack and half a suitcase to share with Claire and set out for a week of adventures. We left on a train at 8: 45 to Milan, where we caught our connecting sleeper train to PARIS. The train was broken into coquettes, which are rooms with 6 beds, 2 triple bunk beds. Claire and I snagged the top bunk that was by far the best beds in the room. We had a lot of room above us to sit up; the others couldn’t and were very claustrophobic (sorry bout it). I slept like a baby. We arrived in Paris around 8am and wandered around for almost an hour before finding our hostel, St. Christopher’s. It was ENORMOUS! There were lots of young Americans there. After dropping off our luggage we searched for the closest Kebab place. On the way to the Notre dame we stopped at a museum, which the boys convinces us were Versailles and of course we believed them. We walked through the gardens and around the museum for a while then headed toward Notre Dame when we ran into a zoo. There were all these crazy animals there, includes OSTRICHES! Finally we reached the NOTRE DAME. It is by far my favorite church I have seen thus far. It was absolutely amazing. I especially liked the gargoyles on the outside. It took our group almost an hour to see the whole church.* on our way back we spotted a Mickey Ds and had to go! After ordering we realized what we missed out on, GOLDEN MENU. Which consisted of 2 Hamburgers, chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink for only 9 Euros! Since we missed out on this amazing offer, Greg took a picture of it, however one of the employees made him delete the picture saying “we have no right to take picture” the boys weren’t very happy with this! We decided to head back to the hostel to check in. Our room had 10 beds but only 9 of us. Our roommate for the first night was Miles from California. We were all exhausted so we took a 2-hour nap and started getting ready. The showers were interesting to say the least. To get the water on you had to push a button for the water to come out and it only lasted 30 seconds. It was very annoying so I just took the shortest shower possible. We headed to the bar downstairs for a while before Me Scott Meeks, Meredith, Josh, Greg and C Ham decided to go to a club. Just as we got off the Metro, Meeks and Me decided we were way to tired to go clubbing and took the metro back. We ended up getting off at the right stop but walking up the wrong exit. On our adventure home we were lured in by a neon sign pointing to Kebabs so of course we stopped. Once we finished our delizioso Kebab we were getting up from the table when we heard a familiar voice. It was JOSH, MEREDITH, and GREG! They took the wrong way and somehow ended up in the same place! What a coincidence!

The Next morning we woke up early to see the LOUVRE. The First thing we saw was the huge glass pyramid. Then we waiting in line and had to go security check before we could enter this ENORMOUS museum. Of course we were drawn to the MONA LISA first. It was quite a disappointment. It was small and nothing special, even though there was a crowd surrounding it at all times. The Louvre was so big you could spend the whole day there, however after a few hours we were dragging a long and decided to go on to another site in a Paris. First we had to book our train tickets to Rome. Because we always wait to the last minute, the overnight train was booked so we ended up buying tickets for almost a whole day of traveling. Because we had to change our plans it was going to be our last day in Paris! We had a lot to see and only a short amount of time!! We scurried off to the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). It was up a huge flight of stairs, but defiantly worth the view! We only spent a short time in this beautiful church, but we had no time to spare. On the way to the Red Light District we picked up some berets and other souvenirs (I got a glass Eiffel tower and shot glass). We walked in the red light district till we reached MOULIN ROUGE. We took a picture outside of it, but were not brave enough to go inside. Next stop ARCH DE TRIUMP! Which is conveniently located on the champs de lise, the most famous shopping strip in Paris. There was even a Memorial service going on right below the Arc, which was pretty interesting. We took a bunch of pictures and decided to head to the Eiffel tower we could now see in the distance. By the time we got off the metro at the tower stop it was dark out. The girls and Scott ran toward the tower in hopes of standing next to it as the lights flickered, which only happens once every hour. It was hard to pass al the crêpes stands but we made it just in time. We snapped some pics then moved toward the time to climb the tower, trying to dodge all the gypsies trying to sell us “bling bling” and mini Eiffel towers. It cost around 8 Euros to take a very shaking elevator to the top. Although it was freezing at the top it was an amazing view of Paris. We soaked up the view then headed down and took jumping pictures in the front lawn of the tower. We sat on a bench and just enjoyed the view* for about 20 minutes before heading back to St. Christophers. We stopped for Crêpes, finally! I got a strawberry jam one and Greg got a nutella one and we went split them both! We arrived back to the hostel around 9pm and were all exhausted, we napped until the Super bowl came on (11pm our time). I grabbed my bottle of vino and headed the Super bowl party on the bottom level of our place. They had a huge screen showing the game and a buffet with chicken nuggets, wings, and fries! I was so excited to hear the game in English and have American food, even just for one night. I was so happy the Saint beat the Colts 31-17. After some celebration it was about 4am at the time, Me Christian, Scott, and C Ham decided it wasn’t worth going to bed for only 2 hours and risk missing the train we had to catch at 7:44am. Christian who has a friend in Paris, showed us around town and just enjoyed how quite and peaceful Paris was in the middle of the night. We headed back to the hostel to make sure everyone was ready to go at 7:00 to find every STILL SLEEPING. It went into straight panic mode. I yelled, “EVERYONE WAKE UP WE HAVE TO LEAVE IN 5 MINUTES!!!” I seriously felt like I was in a Home Alone movie, trying to rush everyone out on time. We ran from metro stop to metro stop and then to the train, to arrive with a minute to spare! PHEWWW. I never thought we were going make it! Just to add to our frustration once we found our seats. An Asian couple was in our seats and was confused that we were trying to tell them they were in the wrong cart. Finally after 20 minutes they moved and we all passed out for a few hours. I just barley opened my eyes for Greg to tempt me into playing rummy, so of course I agreed. Then an announcement came on stating we had a 2-hour delay. Because of this we ended up in Nice (pronounced NEICEE) Luckily we found a train leaving from there in 2 hours straight to Rome for only 3 Euros. We took our refund money, got some wine and headed down to the closest beach in Nice. I was gorgeous and much warmer there; I am even tempted to go back for a weekend in the future. Once we got our sleeping train we realized it was the sketchiest train I’ve ever been on. We had a room with six seats that lounged out. Luckily Claire, Bama, and Steph put their feet up and passed out like a sleeping beauties while we the rest of us sat in discomfort the whole way. Scott and Greg and I stayed up the whole time, unable to sleep due to the small space and gypsies pacing the halls the whole night waiting for us to fall asleep so they could rob us. At least we had Bama’s bike lock to somewhat secure the door. It was a rough night to say the least.

ROME

We arrived in Rome way to early, 6ish I believe. The town was practically deserted so we wandered around and found our hostel (Chianti) fairly easily. Once we got there we found out that we weren’t allowed to check in till 4pm! I was beyond exhausted at this point, not having slept in 2 days! We found a coffee shop then headed toward the Roman Forums. IT was Huge! After 2 hours or so of seeing all the ruins and even a bunch of orange trees, I was “rocked out” and ready to be in the inside the Coliseum where over (140,00 people died in battle). By this time the sun was fully out and I warmed up a bit. There was a line to get in so we headed down the street for lunch before. We all got pizzas and I got my first GELATO. It was delicious! Then we entered the Coliseum, I couldn’t believe how much of it was still standing! Once we left the coliseum we went toward the train station to make our reservations for our train to Venice. We dillydallied, shopping and walking around the city till we could finally check in at 4. Nap time! We all passed out till about 8pm, then showered and tried to find somewhere to eat. Christian found this small restaurant on a corner near our hostel. We got there and they rushed us to order because the kitchen was closing, we didn’t realize it was already 11pm by this point! I had the an amazing meal, it was fettuccine with cut up asparagus in it with melted provolone cheese on top with a nice refreshing beer YUMMMY!! On the way back we stopped for some gelati where I discovered limone gelati. Everyone proceeded to try it and became just as obsessed as I am. We all slept so good that night. We woke up early to meet our tour guide for the Vatican. We walked in and got our audio devices and headphones so we could here the tour guide over all the other groups visiting the Vatican. First we saw a bunch of amazing paintings murals and sculptures before we reached Michelangelo’s main piece the Sistine Chapel. The whole ceiling took Michelangelo four years to finish and the front wall took 5 hrs, it was unreal. I wish we were allowed to take pictures because it was so gorgeous! (I did sneak one in without the guards seeing, oops!) At the end of the tour we were led up to St.Peters cathedral. By this time we were all starving so we took a road to a small restaurant where I got spaghetti and some red wine. We headed back to the Vatican Square. We climbed to the top of St. Peters Basilica and then went underground where the Popes tombstones were! We left the Vatican and walked about 20 minutes to another famous church, the Pantheon. The Pantheon has one of the largest domes in a church in Europe! After walking around there we found a McDonalds conveniently across the street where we found 1€ burgers. We decided to hop on the metro and go back to the hostel to get ready for the night. We showered and got dressed up then ventured back out in the city. We found the Spanish steps, and I was a bit disappointed. I expected them to be much larger than they were, oh well. Next stop...TREVI FOUTAIN! We picked up some cheap-boxed wine for the walk. We got lost for a little until we heard the water; we followed it up to the fountain. It was much larger than a expected and was so pretty lit up at night. We each got out a coin and threw it over our shoulder and made a wish. We stopped by a bar on the way home till about 2 or 3am. We woke up to a Chianti hostel worker banging on our door asking for our passports. He told us that the police were in our hostel, but didn’t give us any details past that. He came back about 45 minutes later, informing us that the hostel would be shutting down at 12pm (this was around 10am)… As we were packing up our luggage, the man at the front desk (young, tatteted up man) told us that they were shutting it down because of bad paperwork. Luckily he set us up with a new hostel, only about 10 minutes walking away. Once we got there we found ourselves in Rome’s “China Town.” We dropped off our stuff and walked around by the train station to find a church that had the prime meridian line running across it! Then we walked around by the shops for a few hours. I found a black pea-type coat on sale and had to buy it! There was also a small parade through the streets getting everyone excited for Carnivale!! As the sun started to set we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the PUB CRAWL! Luckily it was Ladies night so it only cost 15€ for the whole night! The first bar we were at was free drinks and pizza for an hour. We found a large table to sit at and started drinking. We also got a free t-shirt as we walked in; on the back it read “WE CAME, WE SAW, WE CRAWLED!” The next bar we had to hop on a bus full of Americans. We got a free shot when we walked in. After about 45 minutes we moved on to the next bar (free shot), where there was more dancing then to the next then finally the discotheque! I grabbed a cab with Claire, Josh, and Meeks (who fell asleep at the bar) and headed back to the hostel.

Münich

Last Weekend in Janurary

We woke up and took the train at 10:12 . The first part of the train was only 2 hrs, I slept most of the way. We switched trains in Zurich, where Greg and I split a Kebab, which was of course AMAZING and totally worth the 10 Euros. Finally after our 5hr connection we were in Munich! I immediately spotted a Starbucks and ran to get a coffee! The walk to our hostel, 4-U-Munchen, was less than a minute, which was so convenient. We got there around 6pm; the hostel was nice except for the awful STENCH coming from our room. There were 8 of us in a 12-bedroom room; there were 2 people in there already sleeping. One of them was Claudia from Brazil, and the other was Dylan from Australia. So we started to get ready for the night then headed downstairs for happy hour in the bar in our hostel. The “special” was a combination of 2 dark beers, 2 light beers, 2 wheat beers, and 2 shots of jager for 9.90 Euros! I started with a liter of beer and decided to hold off on the special until the next night. After happy hour we bundled up and headed out in the snow. We walked through the main plaza, past the glockenspiel to the Hofbräuhaus. When I walked it I was shocked! I knew it was a famous bar and all but I didn’t expect the hundreds people sitting at long tables eating bratwurst and chugging liter beers while singing drinking songs. It was so loud but I didn’t mind. The waitresses were wearing traditional bier garten dresses, and there were men and women dressed in authentic German outfits dancing and playing instruments throughout the restaurant/bar. Once we sat down I ordered a liter of beer and a sausage/bratwurst looking thing, it came with extremely too much sauerkraut. I sat with Meredith (bama) and Scott introduced us to his 2 friends from tech that are studying in Munich, Bryant and Tommy. Bama and me rode black on the metro back to our hostel, where we took advantage of our happy hour bracelets. Around midnight Me Scott Bama Tommy and Bryant were the only ones in shape to hit the club. We walked about 5 minutes down the road to Club Neuram (video below).

It was huge and only cost 7 euros and we got a free drink when we walked in. There were 3 huge dance floors on different levels. We danced the whole night. Around 4 am we left the club and walked to the kebab and pizza place above it and enjoyed an amazing kebab! Finally returning to our hostel around 4:30 am. Next morning we grabbed some toast and oj from the hostels free breakfast. We set out for sight seeing soon after. First stop was a beautiful church with a big clock on the top of its bell tower. Just around the corner was the GLOCKENSPEIL. It was absolutely gorgeous. We lucked out and happened to be standing right in front of it when the clock hit noon. Bells started chiming and towards the top of the glockenspiel the figures started dancing and moving in a circle (like a coo coo clock) in and out of the building. Next we climbed up all 26 flights of stairs to the top of St. Peters Church! The view was breathtaking, I could see for miles and miles; the whole town of Munich! After seeing all the famous buildings and churches we ventured around town and ran into “joy of sex” shop and multiple bier garten dress shops. Around 4pm we met up with Bryant and he took us to the BMW museum! I was in HEAVEN! They had all the new models on the main floor along with a bunch of interactive things to try out. I built my dream car and virtually test-drove it. They also had all the engines lined up which was pretty cool. We were all hungry and tired by this point. The boys went to a bar to watch the Milan futbol game and the girls got subway and headed back to the hostel to rest up for the night. We decided to dress up all sassy and head to another club, this time with everyone. The club was packed, this one was much more classier than the night before. We danced the whole time. On the way home I was struggling in my heels. Cobble stones+snowyice+liquor do not mix! Lets just say it took a lot longer then expected. The next morning we hopped on a train to Dachau, the first concentration camp instated in Germany during the Holocaust. It was an experience I will never forget. Seeing the crematoria, gas chambers, and bunkers close up were horrifying. After a few hours we headed back to the train station and back to Lugano. This was the first time our whole group had made it back together, which was a relief. I had so much fun in Germany I wasn’t ready to leave. We got home around 11pm, time for detox and sleep.

Interlaken!

Our second week of adventures began with a typical night at peter pan bar on Thursday for karaoke. Friday, Stephanie, Meredith, Claire and I finished up our midterm in the classroom at USI. After that we went to Migros (the local cheap grocery store) and got two bottles of wine for the weekend. Before that we started pregaming in the double deuce (room 22: Josh, Greg, and Scott). We each finished one bottle before heading to another local bar coyote ugly. Cory knew a one guy from her high school that was in another American group staying in the Montarina. She told them to head to coyote ugly as well. There were approximately 40 Americans at the bar. It was so nice to meet new people and actually hear more English! The next thing I knew the alarm was going off at 8 am for our 9 am train ride. I had yet to pack! We threw everything in a backpack and scurried down to the train station. The Eurail pass was amazing, all you did was flash it to the ticket guy and you were set. We had about a 2 hour train ride to our exchange in Luzern. We still haven’t eaten at this point, but our exchange was only 10 minutes so we didn’t risk it, and got on the next train to Interlaken. After another 2 hour train ride, we all got of the train and explored a little bit. Then walked about 15 minutes to our hostel. This hostel was AMAZING compared to Milan. Everyone spoke English and there were so many rooms, with so many Americans staying there. After settling in to our 10 person dorm, we decided to head out to get some food because we were all famished. The first thing we saw was HOOTERS. Obviously we were all drawn to the wonderful American “home cooking”, if you will. The waitresses costumes were the same. After we ate we headed back to Balmers to get ready for the night sledding. Next door to our hostel was a place to rent gear. So I splurged for some snow pants luckily snow shoes came with our package. We then went upstairs and threw on every layer possible before the van picked us up for the sledding. We drove in a bus for about 30 minutes straight up the hill. Once we got there we were given a little plastic toboggan with one single string. As a group we then waited to go up in groups on the gondola all the way to the top. That was a wee bit terrifying in the pitch black. Once we got up there we got a red flashing light stick to hang on our back (comforting), to that people didn’t CRASH INTO US. Then we got a quick lesson on how to steer by basically stomping on the ground. We were all a little nervous right before we got started, but lightened up once Greg (who was leading the pack) let out a loud “SO LONG GAY BOYS”- from the hangover. Then we were off! Right away we were sledding SO FAST, whipping around corners. Some girls were really bad at it, and I had to abort sled a few times. But other than that it was SO MUCH FUN. It was an amazing adrenaline rush. The sledding itself probably lasted an hour. And I’m pretty sure its safe to say sledding down the board of education hill will never be the same again now that I’ve sledded down the Swiss alps. After reaching the end, we put our sleds away and headed inside for what we thought would be a phenomenal fondue dinner. We headed inside and had 2 pitchers for our table, with a little plate of bread and salad. After a few pieces of bread, the pot of cheese was gone. Luckily they brought out another course, which was hash browns with egg on top (YUMMY). After everyone finished up we headed home. We returned our gear and RAN upstairs to get ready. We got ready very quickly (looking a feeling a little bit rough after sledding). After hanging out a little bit in our room, we headed downstairs to the club. There were so many locals and Americans there; it was packed wall to wall. It was so much fun to dance and hang out with new people. The next morning we had to check out before 10AM. A big group of us spontaneously decided to head up the mountain in Grindelwald. Once we got there we saw a big sign telling us that “world snow festival,” was the day before and there were still the snow sculptures from all around the world. After looking around for a while we hopped on the train back to Interlaken. Then with four minutes till our train to Luzern we got on and rode for 2 hours. Once we got to Luzern we were FAMISHED. So we headed inside burger king (where else?). We had about 10 minutes until the train left for Lugano. The line was kind of long but we decided to stick it out. With 1 minute to spare we got our food and started to run. Next thing we knew we were stuck behind a woman with a cart full of carbonation tanks going at the pace of molasses. We were trying to bob and weave but were unsuccessful. Once we got around her we started sprinting and with my hand almost at the door, the train started to pull out of the station NOOOOOOOOO. It wasn’t too upsetting, because we got to sit and relax and wait for the next train an hour away. We slowly enjoyed our burger king and watched MTV’s “Next” with German subtitles. We finally got home around 6:30PM. I was absolutely exhausted and so we watched “The Hangover” and went to bed around 12pm.

Milan (MEELANN)

The next morning after the pub, we had to wake up at 6:30 AM! (ROUGH) I put my hiking backpack to use and tried to pack light (or what I thought!). And we got on our 7:15 Train to Milan! We have one train layover and had about 45 minutes left. We got to Milan around 9 am and I was absolutely famished. Obviously the group was in unison about getting McDonald’s breakfast. Much to our dismay there is no such THING as a McDonalds breakfast abroad!? But in case you were wondering McDonalds does serve shrimp or beer if you’re interested. After finishing up a delicious 5 Euro meal, we headed out for some site seeing. Looking like complete tourists with camera’s attached to our hands we began to walk around. After a little bit of getting lost we found ourselves in the heart of Milan, at the beautiful square. This had everything from Gucci to Prada and every other major designer you could think of. Through this square was the duomo. This was a HUGE church, something out of a storybook. Next thing we knew we were completely surrounded by the GYPSIES. They were either complete guidos or black men trying to give us bird feed or “obama” bracelets (which were just rainbow string bracelets I used to make in middle school). They want to take our cameras to take pictures of all of us, it was kind of terrifying but you had to be harsh with them and say NO! After taking a bunch of pictures outside we decided to go inside. We couldn’t take any pictures inside, so sorry I don’t have any documentation, but it was absolutely BREATHTAKING. I was in complete aw of the beautiful paintings, candles, high ceilings, stain glass, beautiful pews and confessionals. The entire thing was stunning, we slowly paced the church for almost an hour. After we examined every last bit, and even prayed, we decided to head back outside to the bitter cold. Greg, Scott, and Chris decided to pay 5 Euros to go up to the top of the Duomo, but we decided to stay down and walk around a little bit. While we were walking around the square, mainly avoiding the gypsies, we noticed a big limo. A few minutes later we realized that there was a wedding processional. It looked as if Asian royalty had just gotten married! The woman’s dress was BEAUTIFUL old lace. After walking around we tried to find the boys that had gone up top. After about 2 hours of pacing around in the cold, we decided that it was going to be impossible to find these boys (even with our cell phones that we’re never going to figure out how to use). Instead, Stephanie, Claire James, Josh, Meredith and I decided to go to our hostel. Easier said than done! It took us about an hour to figure out the metro, which line to use, which way to go, it was all so confusing! We finally got on the right train and got off at a stop 2 minutes from our hostel! Hostel Greco, had a buzzer outside of the apartment complex with a big wooden door outside. We then checked in, to this tiny tiny, old hotel. When we were let in to the hostel it was our first glimpse at our first hostel. Luckily the only other people in the hostel were our age, one guy named Tom from Australia, and the another named Evandro from brazil. When we got to the hostel we unpacked and just hung out for a little and waited for the other 3 to get home. After an hour or so of sitting around we decided to start getting ready for the night. Dinner slipped our mind (or we just economically decided against it). We hung out in the hostel for a little bit, pregamed, and then decided to go out on the town. Our first plan was to look for “Discotopless,” clearly a classy European strip club. After about an hour of searching, we gave up and headed into the first irish pub we found. We stayed there for about an hour and then decided to head into Milan for the Discotecha! We got there and it cost 15 Euros for a free drink and to get in! Josh and Claire decided to walk back so me… Greg, C-ham, James, Chris, Scott, Stephanie, and Meredith went in and started immediately ordering LITs. We all then moved to the dance floor. I look over and see Greg already found his dancing partner for the night. He was getting his freak on with “a 350 pound black woman who was easily the same age as his mother.” After a few minutes of bumpin’ and grindin’ she moved out of the way and Greg flat on his face, and TWO TEETH were lost in the process. At the time we just laughed about it and stayed at the club till about 3 am. Before this happened Chris Meeks tried to get into the club without paying so he could relieve himself, yet he hadn’t paid, so walking out of the club he was tackled and almost arrested! Everything was fine once he paid the 20 francs they wanted from him! I woke up in the morning and was so confused, everyone was in different beds, Greg was missing two teeth and Meeks somehow found the hostel last night by himself, I felt like I was in the movie hangover fo real. We packed our bags and got out of that shitty hostel and went to the store, got some Heinekens, and walked towards the stadium for the AC Milan futbol game ! We each bought a jersey (I got Rhonaldino), met up with some other people from Lugano, and headed into the nearest bar. The game was SO much fun and seeing DAVID BECKHAM from the stands was well worth the 38 Euros! Right after the game we headed to the train station. Unfortunately we didn’t buy a round trip ticket, and when we went to get our ticket home, the ticket window said that the earliest trip home to Lugano was 5 AM THE NEXT MORNING!!!!!! We began to panic…. A LOT. We thought about being a stowaway but decided against it. As the 7pm train pulled away we noticed that two members from our group was ON THE TRAIN! We thought that they would for sure be kicked off (of course no! they got home safe). As we nuzzled up next to a heater, assuming we were sleeping in the train station, we got a phone call saying at another train station there was a train home at 9:15. Everyone in our group got their stuff and started running (Me and Josh stayed behind to find James who was missing, but that was a whole other story). Finally around 1am we were back to the home sweet home of the Hotel Montarina! It was so good to be at our home away from home!

Bellinzona Castles!

Oh my what a first weekend. We ended classes early on Friday, Magda let us out early for those of us going on the 1:15 train to Bellinzona. Bellinzona is a just a 20 minute train ride, through Switzerland. About 25 of us were going to go site see. We hoped off the train and walked straight to the first castle. It was something out of a movie, a real LIFE CASTLE! Although it took away from the authenticity of it, we took an elevator to the top. We walked around taking pictures and just looking out over the gorgeous town. After about 30 minutes of walking around, up and down the towers and such, we headed down to the town. We found a huge church, so we walked inside and it was GORGEOUS (I’m thinking that beautiful churches is going to be a theme this semester). We walked around taking pictures, and I wrote in the prayer book to bring us home safe and sound after this crazy semester and lit a candle. After a few hours in town we decided to hop back on the train and head home. Typical Claire she had lost he round trip ticket, but the ticket checker looked at her receipt and let her go. So we came home and got ready, for what else? But going out! As a house we decided to go to an Irish pub (BAD IDEA) without getting lost it would have been a 30 minute walk in heals, but because we were following James who apparently knew exactly how to get there it took us about an hour! We walked in, and immediately met some AMERICANS!!!!! They went to Franklin college which was right across the street, it was so refreshing to hear everyone speaking English, even the bartenders.

First Week of Classes!

We started classes this Monday, with Consumer behavior taught by our leader of the trip Dr.Brinberg at 1:30. Good thing we left early because it took us a while to find University of Switzerland (called USI). It is gorgeous and everything is a little different! The first day we bought pizza (which I have eaten at least once a day since we’ve been here, for only 4 francs ()! It’s basically a quarter of an entire pizza. DELICIOUS. Tuesday we started Italian bright and early at 9am, getting up that first day, still pretty jet lagged at 730 was pretty rough! We have at least a 30-minute walk to class. Wednesday we only had class with Bringberg, and afterwards we went to our second aerobics class, which is taught by someone who looks exactly like Snookie from jersey shore (minus the bump-it). Everyone from the entire class attended so it was pretty entertaining, and I’m glad I’m working off all of that pizza and pasta. After our long day of classes we have our walk home (up the hill) it is straight up hill for a solid 20 minutes, and im panting and sweating by the end. I have no idea how people can say that they even gained weight here with all of the walking we do! Thursday we have classes all day, and Friday we only have Italian in the morning. I decided that it was a good idea to get some groceries on Thursday so that we didn’t have to keep buying pizza every single day. So far im loving classes, especially our Italian teacher Magda she’s the cutest lady and has the funniest laugh/chuckle.

First Weekend in Lugano!

The next day Lauren and I didn’t wake up until 3pm, due to the horrible jet lag! We woke up starving so we walked down the huge hill to the center of town and stopped at a Pizzeria. We soon realized that the pizzas, which were said to be for only one were huge, everything was much more expensive, and dinning out is a lot different than it is in the states. In Lugano and all around Switzerland and Italy dinning is more a social event than eating. A typical dinner here would last 4hrs and the waiters are in no rush to get you to leave because tip is included on the paycheck. Once it began to drizzle we started to head home. Later that night all of us got ready for a nice first dinner. We dressed up and headed out in the rain. Although we tried, 40 people in one restaurant is not exactly doable. Therefore we all split up. Myself and about 15 others went to a small Italian restaurant (IF you’re wondering why Italian? That is because Lugano is the only speaking Swiss city, which happens to be one of the wealthiest places to live). We all fit at one table, and everyone was ecstatic at the fact that we could order wine at dinner. I split a bottle of pinot grigio with Kate. All of the portions here are huge! And everything here is pretty expensive! I spent about $20 on dinner, even when I split my meal (Spaghetti Carbonara) with Claire! After dinner we walked to a nearby bar called “bar oops.” It was a little expensive but who cares IM LEGAL TO DRINK! This bar was much more crowded then peter pan from the night before. There were so many locals and it was more expensive so after the bar closed, we all began to walk home in the POURING RAIN! That was not exactly very fun but I didn’t mind.