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