Settled in at Oxford!

We did it!  We're finally here in Oxford, I'm all unpacked and we finally have a chance to breathe.  Well, breathe for the ten hours until my first class starts.  Eesh.

So where did I leave off?  Finals went swimmingly--I know that I got almost 100 on art, and I'm not that worried about music either.  It was VERY nice to get our classes done with, and we celebrated yesterday by renting bikes for our free afternoon and riding to the North Sea from Bruges.  It was about 20 miles (14 kilometers each way), but it was a really lovely ride through the Belgian countryside on the way.  We hung out at the beach, grabbed a really good Belgian beer, and then headed back to the city.  It was really cool--even our music professor came with us (he actually lead the way), and we got to talk to him in a slightly more relaxed setting than usual.  We also bought Belgian chocolates on the way home, which was quite excellent if I do say so myself :-)

We got really lucky with the weekend that we ended up being in Bruges; there was this festival going on called the "Feest in 't Park," which was basically an outdoor hippy festival to celebrate the end of school and the beginning of summer.  There was tons of cheap ethnic food and all of these stands selling funky jewelry and scarves and things.  It appeared that the entire city of Bruges had showed up for the event, and there was lots of music and dancing and people sitting out on the green talking.  It was lots of fun, and definitely a nice way to end our travel portion.

We left for the UK this morning from the hotel, and after a couple of hours of driving we made it to the end of the Chunnel in France.  The way we crossed was SO SWEET--they had all of these long, wearhouse-like train cars, and we just drove our coach bus onto one of them, crossed, and then drove off (on the other side of the road, of course).  We made it to Oxford by about three thirty.

First of all, the campus--it's BEAUTIFUL.  This is one of the loveliest places I've ever lived, and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to live here for six weeks!  A couple of the dorms are actually from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (the oldest is from the twelfth century), but I got placed in a dorm that's only a couple of years old.  At first I was kind of bummed, but then I realized that I have a single with its own private bathroom and shower when other halls are sharing a bathtub between seven or so people.  I unpacked within about fifteen minutes then spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds and catching up on the internet.  We also had our first dinner (very Harry Potter-esque, you line up to go into a big dining hall and then they serve you a three-course meal at long tables) and an orientation.

Anyway, early class tomorrow.  More soon!

Dara

PS: Link to Strasbourg/Brussels/Bruges pictures-- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015798&id=1326450024&l=f6f9c5297a

PPS: My Belgian tribute to U of M...

In Bruges

So I realized right after I posted that I had forgotten the best fact about our journey from Prague to Strasbourg--our bus got pulled over by undercover cops!  We were all asleep just after we'd crossed the border into Germany from the Czech Republic and then suddenly everyone was like "PUT ON YOUR SEATBELTS!" and then there were two German men in corduroy pants with guns coming onto our bus and demanding that everyone pass up their passports.  After looking at two people's identification and seeing all of our terrified faces, they left the bus and went back to their sketchy sketchy unmarked blue van.  Our group leader suspected that it was because they were required to take down the border checks when the Czech Republic joined the EU but Germany still doesn't really trust their customs and passport control checkpoints... interesting theory.  Needless to say, I'm not a fan of people with guns yelling at me in foreign languages.

We left Strasbourg yesterday to come to Bruges, and thanks to a well-placed rest stop on the part of our bus driver, Roger, I've now also been to Luxembourg!  We arrived in Bruges with no issues and went out to dinner last night.  We were assured by our professor that food would be cheap here, but even Thai Food is ten euros!  Sheesh!  The beer here, however, IS cheap (and amazing), which is a definite plus.

Today we took a day trip to Brussels, which is definitely one of my favorite cities that we've visited.  We went to a really sweet art nouveau apartment, and we learned that art nouveau design was actually strongly influenced by the theories of Charles Darwin, which was really interesting!  Our assignment today was to go through the apartment and find examples of art and architecture as "metamorphosis" or "natural selection."  After that we went to a great musical instrument museum then had lunch and headed back to Bruges.  On the way out our bus driver, who's Belgian, gave us a quick bus tour of the city, which was very nice of him.  We were supposed to go to see the Ghent Altarpiece on the way home, but our finals are tomorrow and everyone wanted to get back here to study.  Oh well.

Right now I'm at the laundromat, one of the few places in this city with free wifi.  After this I think I'm going to grab a quick bite and then study some more.  Fun night :-)

Dara

PS:  Finally, here's a link to the Prague pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015367&id=1326450024&l=b87abbf214

In France Again...

Bonjour encore! (Even though the French accent I worked so hard on is now TERRIBLE thanks to my time in Germany, Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic...)

So where to begin?  The opera was great and we actually had seats at this one (as opposed to standing room), which was a definite improvement over the concerts that we saw in Vienna.  Our music professor prepared us extremely well for the opera, and even the people who had never been to one before said that they could really follow it and very much enjoyed themselves.  After the opera we went out to dinner (traditional Czech cuisine...very meat and dumplings-y) and then headed back to the hotel.

This morning we left the hotel by eight thirty, and by seven o'clock tonight we had been in three different countries!  We're in Strasbourg right now, and I really really love it here.  It has the same kind of feel as Salzburg--a really small but beautiful city with genuinely wonderful people.  After getting to the hotel tonight we went out to dinner (which was delicious--I'm definitely one with French food) and wandered around the city for a bit.  After that, six of us took a bottle of wine down to the river and sat out together talking and laughing and reminiscing about the last four weeks.  It was great.

Time for bed now, though!  Hopefully I'll get to update once we get to Belgium, our last stop before hopping the channel.

Dara

PS: A link to the Prague photos soon (most of them are already up), but right now the internet is just working very poorly.  Harumph.

Last Day in the Czech Republic

Helloooo from Prague!

Okay, so I know that I said I'd update yesterday, but with all of our important stuff to do (and by that I mean napping again), I never got around to it.  Sorry :-(

So we started our day with music class, then we went to Prague Castle for a tour for art class.  They have this incredible gothic cathedral there called St. Vitus, which was hands-down my favorite cathedral that we've seen in Europe.  The Castle also has incredible views of the whole city and the river, so we stayed up there for lunch before walking down the hill.  After that we went to find what's called the "John Lennon Wall," which is basically this giant wall filled with graffiti about peace and love and the Beatles.  It was really cool--there were words from people from all over the world all talking about the same concepts.  Sadly, though, I forgot to put my battery in my camera yesterday, so there isn't any photo documentation.

After the wall (and another English-language bookstore) we came back to the hotel for our afternoon naps.  Last night most of the group decided to go on another organized pub crawl, so we headed out after a quick dinner of kebab to go there (Note: I'm going to miss kebab/schwarma/gyro/whatever SO MUCH when I go back home.  It's the best fast food EVER.).  The pub crawl was fun--I met people from all over the place (Bermuda, Oxford, New Jersey... it was an interesting mixture), which is always a good time.

This morning we had our last music class before our final (eek!) and then went to Terazin, a fortress that was converted into a prison by the Nazis during their occupation of what is now the Czech Republic.  This prison was primarily used for intellectuals, rabble-rousers, and Jews who refused to follow Nazi policies regarding identification and registration (it was also where Gavrilo Princip, the man who assasinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was imprisoned until his death).  One of the major Jewish ghettos of this region was also connected to the prison, but we didn't have time to go down there and see the museum, which I was kind of disappointed about.

One of the most interesting things we learned today was that once the Russians liberated Terazin, they then converted it into their own prison and locked up many of the same people who the Nazis had already been holding there.  Several years later the compound was converted into the historical site that it is today, but until 1989 (and the Velvet Revolution) the tour guides were closely monitored by Soviet officials.  They weren't allowed to mention the ghetto or the Jewish imprisonment at all; they were only supposed to discuss the famous communists who had been held there by the Germans.  Hm.

After our tour there we headed back to our hotel where we got lunch.  We're now all in the lobby blogging, although I should probably head upstairs and pack (and take another nap, let's face it).  Tonight we're finally getting to see La Traviatta, which is kind of acting as the culmination of our music class.  I'm so excited--I've seen it before, but hopefully this will be a much larger-scale production.  Tomorrow we leave to drive back west...we'll be staying overnight in Strasbourg, France tomorrow and then getting to Bruges, Belgium the next day.   After that it's just finals and hopping the channel to Oxford.  Time flies, eh?

Anyway, lots of love,

Dara

We'd Like the Czech, Please!

Okay, so after our first full day in Prague, I am definitely a big fan.  This city is beautiful, there's tons to do, and we've all been having a really great time so far.  A quick summary of today:

Jewish Museum - This morning, Alexandra, Kathryn, and I got up early to go to the Jewish Museum, a set of 5 synagogues, a ceremonial hall, and the Jewish cemetery here.  It was really incredible--Prague had one of the largest Jewish populations in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust (Jews started moving here in the 9th century), and there was just such a rich history that was well-0rganized into exhibits.  The highlights were: the New-Old Synagogue (built in the 13th century, making it the oldest in Eastern Europe), the Spanish Synagogue (one of the most beautiful I've ever seen), and the cemetery (it has over 12,000 tombstones piled on top of each other for lack of space to bury Jews Kosherly).  I would really recommend the museum for anyone traveling in Prague, Jewish or not :-)

Walking Tour - After we finished with the Jewish Museum, we got a walking tour of the area around the Old Town Square from our art professor.  We saw a bunch of important churches (and a couple of the towers that marked the old city limits), as well as the Astronomical Clock and the Charles Bridge.  After our tour ended we did some shopping (Prague is famous for it's amber so I bought myself a little necklace) and ate (of course).  I discovered this amazing fruit dumpling dessert dish that's like a heart attack on a plate, but SOOOO good.  Oh well.  I also found an English-language bookstore, so I finally have something for pleasure reading again...hooray!

Black Light Show - Hands-down the weirdest thing I've done since I got to Europe.  According to Rick Steves (our new god), Black Light Shows are a very Prague thing to do, so we decided to fork over the money for tickets and check it out.  It was SO STRANGE...basically weird mime-esque sketches that would then lead to people in spandex dancing under black lights.  Think of a really REALLY low budget Cirque du Soleil.  After the show was (finally) over we headed back to the hotel.  All in all, a very interesting day.

More to come!  Hopefully tomorrow.

Dara

From the Czech Republic...

So the strangest thing just happened to us here on our first night in Prague...there are fifteen or so of us in the lobby of our hotel on our laptops (the internet is free here), and a guy from the next group over just asked us if he could take our picture because he and his friends had never seen so many new laptops before.  Definitely puts our lives in perspective a bit.

So what we've done since my last post...hmm.  For our free day in Vienna yesterday, we started out by heading over to the Freud Museum.  It really wasn't that exciting...just a few rooms in the apartment where he had his practice in Vienna (before he had to relocate to London because of the Nazis).  Two of my friends here are psych majors, though, so they absolutely loved it :-)

After the Freud Museum we went to Schonbrunn Palace, this gorgeous palace in Vienna a few miles outside of the city center (it's said to be one of the only palaces in Europe that can rival Versailles).  It has acres and acres of gardens surrounding the actual palace which are beautiful and amazingly well-kept.  Out of all of my friends, I was the only one who decided to fork over the euros to go inside, which was totally worth it.  It was incredible, and I learned a lot about Austrian history.

For our last night in Vienna we had another concert for music class--this time we got tickets to the Vienna Philharmonic, which was arguably the most incredible classical music concert I've ever attended.  The only problem was that we had standing room tickets for the second night in a row (only 6 euro, so I can hardly blame our trip organizers for choosing them), and my feet were ridiculously tired by the end.  Afterwards we went back to our favorite pub in Vienna (yes, we had one after only four days) for a last dinner before leaving for Prague this morning.

The drive to Prague was short compared to the other trips we've had thus far (only four hours), so we arrived here around 2:00 this afternoon.  Prague is definitely unlike any place I've been before--for one thing, I can't even pretend to figure out the language, unlike any of the previous places we've been.  We haven't really seen the city center yet, but it's definitely been an experience thus far.  Tonight we went to the Mozart House here to see a string quartet concert and then went out to dinner--nothing that exciting, but we're all exhausted so no one really cares :-)

Speaking of which, I should probably be off to bed--my friend Kathryn and I are heading off early to go to the Jewish Quarter, which should be interesting at the very least.  If you're interested in Vienna pictures, here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015213&id=1326450024&l=51d194ba62

Lots of love,

Dara

PS: Weekends in Oxford have finally been finalized!  Here's the list:

Weekend 1 - Day Trips in the Southern UK (Bath & Cotswald)

Weekend 2 - Lisbon, Portugal with Trevor Hancey from CTY

Weekend 3 - Amsterdam, Netherlands with Amy & Bryan

Weekend 4 - Dublin, Ireland with Amy, Bryan, Dustin, Jeremy, Kathryn & Andrea

Weekend 5 - London, UK (our grand finale)

A Redonkulously Long Note from Wien

So, quite frankly, I am absolutely in love with Vienna.  The people are wonderful and friendly, the food is incredible, and the city has a nice balance of an old-European and new-city feel (it’s also very clean, which is nice).  I’m actually kind of relieved to have left Italy, to be quite frank—one can only put up with throngs of tourists and overpriced food for so long.

So where to begin?  On our first morning we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (a ridiculous name, I know), which was nice, although I’m getting kind of sick of museums.  After that we had a break before our second activity of the day, so a bunch of us just laid out in a park and napped and played cards.  After that we got a tour of the Vienna Opera House, which although not as beautiful as the Opera Garnier in Paris, was impressive nonetheless.

For one thing, the stage at the Vienna Opera House is over 1,000 square METERS big!.  It has a depth of 100 meters (50 for the stage and then 50 for the backstage), and then another 50 meter by 50 meter area stage right that used to be dressing rooms.  The tops of the flys go up to a height of sixty meters as well, which just creates this ridiculous cavern effect.  The really impressive part is that they put on a new opera EVERY SINGLE NIGHT—it’s theater policy that they never do anything 2 nights in a row.  This means that they have ½ day strikes and builds every single day…they apparently load up 25 trucks with sets across town, drive them over while they’re striking from the previous night, put all the old sets in the trucks, and then do a quick build to finish by show time.  It’s not as if these are dinky sets, either; the vertical framed screens they had for “Faust” had to be at least 50 foot squares.  Wow.

After the Opera House, we went to the Hotel Sacher for their famous sacher torte (apparently they invented chocolate cake there), and then wandered around for a bit.   We ended up at a great restaurant for dinner where they brewed their beer on premises, and I had a delicious (and filling) dinner of a traditional Viennese pasta dish and a house-brewed cider.  Amazing.   After dinner Amy and I worked out at the gym in our hotel and then used the steam room and sauna.  This is the life, not gonna lie…

Yesterday we had two events for class—the Upper Belvedere Museum for art and the Esterhazy Palace for music.  The Belvedere had an amazing Gustav Klimpt collection; the best part was definitely seeing “The Kiss” in person.  There’s so much more texture in the painting than can ever be reproduced in a print, and I think it’s something that every art buff should try to see at some point.  The Esterhazy was slightly less awesome…it’s the residence where Joseph Haydn composed most of his music (which is cool), but the audio tour was really long and really monotonic.  Oh well.

After we got back to the hotel, we had dinner at another beer garden at the Prater, this area near our hotel that’s supposedly one of the oldest carnivals in the world.  There are tons of rides and funhouses and games and such there, and although unbelievably expensive, we rode a small roller coaster, the spinny swings, and one of the ferris wheels.  The ferris wheel was the best part—you could see the entire Vienna skyline from the top.

Today we started our day with a walking tour of Vienna for art class where we saw the Stephansdom, another large church here, and the Secession Building, which has the beautiful Beethoven mural by Klimt.  After our picnic lunch, Bryan and I went to the Haus der Musik together, which was definitely the trippiest museum I’ve ever visited.  Two of the floors were devoted to sound manipulation and the technical aspects of sound (a PAT major’s dream), and the other was dedicated to major Viennese composers.  Pretty darn sweet, and I’d definitely recommend it.  After the museum we went to a coffee house, which is apparently another important thing to do when visiting Vienna.

After a dinner of Kebab (yum), we bought standing room tickets for 3 euro at the Opera House with one of our professors and about eight people from our group.  We stayed for the whole opera, even though it was really obscure—“Die Schweigsame Frau” by Strauss—and it was actually really fun.  Most of the people we went with had never seen a real opera before, and I’m really glad we got to experience it together.

Now it is definitely time to go to bed, though!  Free day tomorrow, which is going to be AMAZING. 

Lots of love,

Dara

PS:  I realized that I never posted a link to Venice pictures, so here it is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015004&id=1326450024&l=4c56b5298a

We're done with Italy...

So, after a week and a half (and what feels like a huge volume of pasta and gelato), we’re finished in Italy! We just arrived in Vienna today, and we’ll be staying here until Saturday—four full days to explore. I’m very excited…especially to have some protein in my diet again, haha ☺

So our last day in Venice was arguably the best day I’ve had in Europe so far. We got up fairly early (by teenager standards, at least), and took the train into Venice. We then walked across the city to the northern side and took a waterbus to Murano, the island in Venice famous for its glass. We saw a quick glass-blowing demonstration then wandered around shopping for a couple of hours. I bought some really nice presents (and a couple of things for myself, of course), and then we headed back to the main island for the afternoon.

Honestly, I’m not sure if we actually accomplished much of anything in the afternoon (besides eating our last gelatos, of course)—we mostly just wandered around the city exploring, but we met some wonderful people and saw some really great stuff. We found tiny art galleries and lots of churches and we even went back to San Marco one last time. That afternoon made me really want to go back to Venice someday; wandering around the city with absolutely nothing to do is even wonderful!

The real highlight of the day was definitely dinner—we found this tiny garden restaurant set back from all the touristy places that served incredible food for actually decent prices. A week and a half ago, when we got to Italy, we were totally stunned by the fact that restaurants expected us to order three course dinners…we would just order a pasta (first course) and then try to fill up on bread. By last night, all of us ordered three courses in addition to a bottle of wine for the table. It was incredible; my first course was the best pasta with pesto I’ve ever had in my life, next Amy and I split something called “Chicken with Rocket Sauce”—I kid you not—and then Bryan and I split the house cake for dessert. By the end we were all full and happy heading back to Padua to go to the hotel.

Today was kind of boring—just a really long drive to get to Vienna. After we arrived, we all met and went out to a Beer Garden for dinner. I had forgotten how wonderfully nice people in Germany and Austria are! Our waiter was delightful and uber helpful; it’s a very different feeling than Italy, where it just seemed like everyone was out for our money. Dinner was delicious (I had goulash and spaetzel), and I’m really looking forward to the rest of our meals here. (If you haven’t noticed, all of us consider food to be a very important aspect of the cultural experience)

We’re also staying at this amazing brand new hotel here in Vienna, which has a free spa on the top floor where my friends and I just spent an hour. Not gonna lie,

We have a response to our Venice concert AND a listening exam in our 8 AM music class tomorrow so I should probably head off to bed. Oh well.

I'm on a Boat!

Hey, y'all!

So for our first day in Northern Italy we went to visit the Scrovegni Chapel here in Padua, which is a very famous set of frescoes painted by Giotto at the turn of the fourteenth century.  It was actually one of my favorite things that we've done thus far on the trip; the chapel was really beautiful, even if we did have to be weirdly disinfected before entering.

After we finished with the chapel (the one thing we're actually doing in Padua, where we're staying), we took a water bus into Venice to go to a concert for music class.  It was just a small group of strings, and they performed mostly Vivaldi concertos.  The only bad thing about the concert was the cellist--in the words of our professor, he considers himself a "rock star" and totally stole focus from the rest of the group for the entire performance.  Although admittedly he does play very well, so whatever.

This morning we woke up early (again) and took the train into Venice as a group.  In the morning we saw the Academia museum... although they did have a very interesting collection, after seeing the amazing museums we've seen on this trip (we saw the Louvre the FIRST DAY, for goodness sakes!), it was nothing to write home about.  No pun intended.

After the Academia we had a big break, so we wandered around, ate lunch and gelato, and saw San Marco, the main square in Venice.  Honestly, I really think that Venice is the most beautiful city I've ever visited in the world--the architecture is gorgeous and it's an amazing place to just wander around and get lost with your friends.

After all the wandering, we went to see the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for art class which was also pretty sweet.  Modern art has totally grown on me during this trip--I love Kandinsky and Pollock and Warhol now, although the surrealists still really freak me out.  Looking at a Dali painting just tends to make me feel really uncomfortable.

After dinner we headed back to Padua, and now we're at the hotel studying for the music listening exam that we have in Vienna.  Tomorrow's a free day so we're planning on heading back into Venice and going to the Glass Island and eating more food.  Should be a good last day in Italy :-)

Dara

Greetings from Padua!

Hello, all!

So where did I leave off?  Ah, the Ancient Roman Bar Crawl--it was a lot of fun, actually, basically just a bunch of silly Americans wandering around Rome.  It was a really nice bonding experience for our group (38 of the 44 of us came), and we got to meet some interesting people studying abroad from the US.  I also got in for free since it was the day after my birthday!  Good times :-)

The day after the bar crawl we had a free day in Rome, which was really nice and relaxing.  In the morning I finally got my laundry done (although they use UBER HOT washers and dryers here so they shrunk all of my clothes), then some friends and I went to the Borghese Museum to see the Bernini sculptures for an art class assignment.  The Borghese is a really weird museum; you have to make an appointment the day before, and they only let people in every two hours exactly...if you miss the entrance time you don't get to go in.  It's also really small but TOTALLY worth it--it was hands-down my favorite museum thus far.  We saw three wonderful Bernini sculptures: "David," "Apollo and Daphne," and "Pluto and Persephone."

After the Borghese we wandered over to the Colosseum, which was incredible.  I'm a little (slash very) upset that the church decided they could rip off all the Colosseum's marble to build the Vatican, but it was still beautiful and impressive without being all shiny and white.  The problem with seeing things in Rome is that it's really hard to accurately determine the scale--both the Colosseum and St. Peter's seemed to be really small until you look at the size of a person across from you.  Then you just think..."Oh."

After dinner a few people from our group headed over to the Trevi Fountain (again), which I've decided is hands-down my favorite place in Rome.  At night it's also an incredible place to "people watch," and my friend Memphis and I started making up stories about everyone that passed.  It was great.

This morning we left for Padua bright and early, and after ten hours on the bus we're finally here!  Our hotel is incredible--we have a balcony, a living room, and a little office in our room.  We're spending tomorrow here in Padua and then the next couple of days in Venice, which should be great.  Thank goodness I got to sleep on the bus all day; this constant running around is really starting to catch up to me.

Time to go to dinner, but here's a link to Rome photos if you're interested: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014690&id=1326450024&l=7e0221365a  They're not all up yet, but they should be within the next few hours.

Missing you!

Dara

Evenings in Roma

Hi, everyone!

Just to start out, thanks so much to everyone who wished me a happy birthday over the last couple of days--it was so nice to know that you were all thinking of me across the pond :-)

Anyway, so after we got to Rome a few of my friends and I decided to scope out a legit Italian meal, so we took a bus across town and found a great restaurant (I got Penne alla Vodka...yum).  The most amazing thing was when we rounded this one corner and we were suddenly PASSING THE COLOSSEUM.  It's just chillin in the middle of the city.  SO COOL.

Anyway, after an early evening we got up on Monday (my birthday!) to head over early to the Vatican.  We got a tour of the museum from this very pushy Italian lady (whenever another tour group was in our way she'd whip out her badge and yell "VATICAN STAFF!" until they moved).  My favorite piece in the Vatican Collection was definitely Raphael's "School of Athens" which is incredible in person (although the Sistine Chapel is pretty sweet too).  After we finished there we got gelato--still averaging once per day--because Rome is INCREDIBLY hot.  No wonder they invented such good ice cream here.

Anyway, after lunch we met in St. Peter's Square and our professor gave us a tour of the Basilica.  It was beautiful and absolutely amazing, but most of us were far too tired and sore to climb up to the top so we just toured the crypt where the popes are buried.   Basically it SO doesn't work like it did in Angels & Demons--the crypt is easily accessible to the general public, you just have to be quiet.  In fact, there were 20-30 people silently praying in front of John Paul II's grave.  It was really moving, even to a non-Catholic like myself.

After naps at the hotel, we went out to dinner at the original Alfredo's restaurant (basically where they invented alfredo sauce).  Although WAY overpriced, it was arguably in the top five meals of my life and a perfect way to end my birthday.   The way they make the alfredo is by bringing a giant bowl of linguine to the table and then mixing in the butter and cheese right in front of you--INCREDIBLE.  I also managed to get through most of a chocolate mousse, but after that I was so stuffed that I kind of waddled home.

One of the most beautiful things that we did yesterday was see the Trevi Fountain at night.  Although packed with tourists, we still managed to make our wishes and throw in our Euros over our shoulders :-)

Today was long and tiring--we had 2 hours of class in the morning, then a walking tour of ancient Rome, then a church walking tour in the afternoon.  We just got back to the hotel, and we're hoping for quick naps before we head out again tonight.  Our entire group of 40 is doing this touristy American bar crawl thing tonight, and we'll be celebrating both my birthday and another girl's (which is today).  Should be fun!

Hugs and kisses, as always!

Dara

When in Rome...

A cheesy joke, I know, but we've already made it approximately fifty BAGILLION times and we've been in Rome for less than an hour :-)

So after my excessively long nap yesterday, a bunch of us decided to go out for our last night in Florence.  We got all dolled up and went out dancing together, which was so much fun.  It's amazing how comfortable I feel with fifty or so people that I didn't even know three weeks ago.

This morning we left Florence at about 8:30 for Rome, but we stopped in Pisa for lunch on the way.  Pisa itself is a pretty interesting place...there are all these people selling cheap knockoffs who hover in the tourist bus parking lot to harass people as soon as they step off the buses, and it really doesn't go up much from there.  The tower was cool (and definitely leaning), but other than that there wasn't much to do.  We had a nice lunch and then got back on the bus, where we watched "Gladiator" to commemorate the beginning of our visit to Rome.

Our hotel here is lovely--right now I'm sitting right in front of our room's huge balcony looking out at a beautiful sky.  Unfortunately, I have to go write my music paper, so it's not as if I can really enjoy it :-)

Off to work, but if you have time here are the Florence pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014498&id=1326450024&l=c721471368

Dara

We're Already Done in Florence!

Oh my goodness, time is just flying by...it's so strange, as we get into the swing of this trip, three days in a city seems to be far too much time.  We sprint around seeing everything for the first two days then have to take a serious nap on the afternoon of the third.  It's definitely a strange way to vacation, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to enjoy week-long trips for a while :-)

So what have we done in Florence?  After class the first day we headed to the Duormo, the dome at the cathedral that's in the center of Florence.  After we got a quick walking tour of the surrounding area (wearing our headsets and with our professor talking into her little microphone like all the other tourists here), we decided to climb the Duormo.  It was fine on the way up and the view really was wonderful, but I'm NOT a big fan of climbing down spiral staircases, so the way down was not really enjoyable.

After we finished at the Duormo we walked across this one bridge across the river lined with jewelry shops and then proceeded to wander around and eat amazing gelato for the rest of the afternoon.  We also visited this huge leather market that they have here, and I bought a beautiful purple purse for 11 Euro less than the asking price, which was an okay negotiation but not great.  For dinner, our friends found this restaurant by the Piazza de Michelangelo with an amazing view overlooking all of Florence, so we went there and watched the sun set over the city.

The next day we did all three major museums in Florence in one day--the Bargello, the Uffizi, and the Academia.  Although I really loved the Botticellis at the Uffizi, the Academia was by far my favorite.  Michelangelo's "David" is HUGE; it's actually the first really well-known piece we've seen that has exceeded expectations when seen in person.  After that, we went out for dinner, ate more gelato (I'm averaging about one per day), and then came back to the hotel.

Today has been much more relaxing--a museum and the Medici Chapel in the morning, then a very long nap this afternoon.  We're also getting much better at finding better and cheaper restaurants in less touristy areas--the place where we at lunch was just a tiny bakery by our hotel, but they had hands-down the best pizza I've ever had in my life.

Anyway, time to get ready for dinner!  We leave for Rome and Pisa tomorrow morning, so more updates from there!

Dara

Munich Recap

So we're safe and sound and in Florence, and since we have FREE WiFi here (amazing!), I thought that I'd put together a quick recap of our day in Munich, as uninteresting as it might have been.

First of all, Munich is an absolutely beautiful city, and the people there are so nice (which I may or may not have already said).  Our main events of the day were going to two museums for art class, one specializing on art of the 16th and 17th centuries--mostly Rococo and Northern Renaissance--and then to the modern art museum.  I've finally figured out where I stand with modern art...I can really get into paintings especially if I have a big group of friends to talk about them with, but installations and weird 3D stuff always just confuse me/freak me out.  I'm definitely getting more well-versed in art, however, which makes me feel very cultured :-)

After the museums we went downtown to wander around and see the Glockenspiel, which was rather unexciting.  It kind of just looked like a Glockenspiel, not gonna lie.  We had our traditional Bavarian dinner after that then headed over to Hofbrauhaus, this very famous beer hall.  I drank an entire liter of dark beer by myself (liters are the only size they came in), then we decided to call it quits for the night and went back to our hotel.

This morning we headed out of Munich bound for Florence VERY EARLY, and despite a minor incident of almost leaving my passport in the hotel safe, the trip was very smooth.  We drove straight through the Austrian and Italian portions of the Alps, which was incredibly beautiful. After we stopped for lunch in Northern Italy we watched "The Sound of Music" on the bus to commemorate our exciting day in Salzburg.

We arrived in Italy fairly late, so we all ran around changing and trying to find food in an effort to get to our concert on time.  (We went to a Schubert concert tonight at one of the concert halls in Florence for music class.)  There were three pieces: an overture, a full mass, and a symphony, although the symphony was by far my favorite.  If you're interested, here's a link to the first movement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoutYQ0sAYc

After the concert we went out to a very good (if not a tad bit uber expensive) Italian dinner...my friend Amy and I split a spinach risotto, which was excellent, and pretty much everyone else had the ravioli.  It turns out that despite the fact that I don't speak more than twenty words in Italian, my colored history of ordering only Italian food at restaurants has made me quite proficient in the language of menus.  Hm.

Anyway, tomorrow we've got three hours of class and then we're going to the dome, so I ought to get to bed.  Please comment if you like my posts--I miss you all terribly and I'd love to know that I'm not just writing to myself! :-)

Dara

PS: I'm fairly certain that photos are never easily uploading themselves to Blogger again, so just check out the Facebook albums...

More Photos!

Hey, everyone!

A complete summary of our day in Munich later (the rumor is that we'll have free WiFi once we get to Italy so it will be easier to update), but I've uploaded my pictures of both Salzburg and Munich to Facebook, so you should feel free to take a look:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014310&id=1326450024&l=61a975a5d9

Off to bed, we're leaving for Florence at SEVEN AM tomorrow morning :-)

xoxox

Dara

A Long Note from Germany

Hey, y’all (as my new southern friends say all the time)!

Sorry for the delay between posts, life has been completely crazy around here!  Internet is crazy expensive in Paris, and now that we’re in Germany we’ve found a cheap internet café, but the keyboards are German which I can’t work very well…oh well.  I’m typing this out on my laptop and hopefully I’ll be able to upload it soon.

So where did I leave off?  The jazz concert in Paris was great, we stayed for two sets and then headed home to our hotel.  The next day we had two class-related events: we went to the Opera Garnier in the morning and then the Pompidou museum in the afternoon. 

The Opera Garnier was one of my favorite things on the trip so far—for those of you who don’t know, it’s where “The Phantom of the Opera” is set, although the other stuff about the building is much more interesting.  It’s a completely beautiful space, and I hope that I get to see a show there someday.  After we left the opera, we headed back to our hotel where there was an adorable “Fete des Enfants” (Party of the Children) festival going on outside our hotel.  It was all about teaching kids about sustainability and other cool stuff like that.

The Pompidou was slightly more odd; in some cases, I just really don’t understand modern art.  The “dada” period is my least favorite…as far as I can tell, it’s just people who consider a bike wheel attached to a stool to be fine art.  I did really enjoy the modern painters (like Matisse and Picasso), however; after our official visit ended my friends and I wandered around discussing all the artwork together and trying to sound knowledgeable.  It was great.

After the Pompidou we got a good (if not a bit overpriced) Parisian dinner with an EXTREMELY rude wait staff.  Seriously, guys, I’ve clearly studied your language for years and you can just suck it up that we’re Americans.  They even hit my friend Amy in the head with a plate and didn’t apologize!  Sheesh.

So after our lovely dinner experience, we took the Metro to Sacre Coeur (the Sacred Heart), a church in the Montmartre district that overlooks all of Paris.  We had amazing crepes (sadly, at a Haagen Daz) then walked up all of the stairs to the church.  Once we got there, we walked into the cathedral where they were in the middle of Saturday night mass.  We sat in the back and watched the end, which was beautiful and amazing and really moving.  After it was over, we wandered around a bit more and headed back to our hotel.

Sunday was basically hours and hours of driving—we left Paris by 8:30 in the morning and got to Munich at about 9:00 at night.  I mostly slept but also made lame and unsuccessful attempts at finishing my music paper on the jazz concert.  Once we got to Munich, a bunch of us headed out to a “Beer Garden,” which is just basically a beautiful outdoor space with lights and nice tables where they serve beers and traditional German foods.  I’m a big fan.

Today we took a day trip to Salzburg, Austria.  We spent the first couple of hours on a “Sound of Music” tour—basically driving around the city in a big bus and seeing all the places that the movie was filmed.  After that, we were given the option of either heading into the countryside to see the church where the wedding scene was shot or seeing Salzburg on our own (or heading back to Munich by train…lame).  A bunch of my friends and I opted to see the old city by ourselves, which was AMAZING.

For one thing, the old city in Salzburg is beautiful—amazing architecture surrounded by beautiful natural landscapes.  We wandered around the city for a bit and then climbed the mountain to the big fortress on the hill that had really spectacular views.  The people were also some of the nicest we’ve met so far.

After we got back from Austria we just finished our papers and then headed out to downtown Munich for a beer.  Not too exciting, but again the people have been so nice and welcoming here…definitely different than Paris!

Anyway, off to bed! Lots of love…

Dara

PS: Photos are taking FOREVER to upload, so just check out this link for the complete Paris photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014093&id=1326450024&l=195b8399de