November 7
Today we went to a place where they showed us about how they made chocolate. It really wasn’t worth seeing and the chocolate was super expensive. We got out of the bus and ate our lunch in the cold November drizzle.
We visited the Cathedral, which is like any other one and then looked at a tapestry from 1070 which told the history of William the Conqueror. Then we watched a video about the making of the tapestry and then slept through the next two showings because our bus driver wasn’t going to come back until later.
November 8
I forgot to mention Frank in my last posts. Every day on my way to and from the main building I get to stop and pet Frank. Frank is a golden retriever. He lives in the backyard of a bakery and he will stand up with his front paws over his fence and let you pet him. We don’t know his real name so we named him Frank because the ottoman (which is a dog) in Beauty and the Beast was played by a guy named Frank.
Today we hopped on the bus at 9, skipping French language and culture lessons. We went in Caen, where William the conqueror’s chateau is. There is a big farmers market in Caen and we spent a good hour looking through it. Most of the touristy stuff was around the edge and then there was a ton of food stands in the center.
We briefly went into the fine art museum but honestly it was a boring one. The history of Normandy museum wasn’t that great either. We saw a bunch of rusted spearheads and some butter churns. We came back to base to eat our lunch and I took a 3 hour nap and the verandah. It was raining most of the time and it was real nice to take a nap inside.
November 9
Today we set out for St. Michaels, which is a big castle/abbey on the coast of France. It is the second biggest tourist attraction in France after Paris. We had an audio tour of the buildings. The view is great. I wish I could have been there at high and low tide. When we were there it was low tide so there is sand for miles before it reaches the ocean. When the tide is really high it covers where we parked our bus and leaves only a small road out to the castle. In the past the abbey would become an island at high tide and then would only be connected by a land bridge at low tide.
The abbey is named after the archangel Michael. Supposedly he appeared to a local bishop twice in dreams and told him to build an abbey. The abbey was started in the year 708 and has been added on to slowly over the years. The abbey has never been taken by force.
We had plenty of time to eat lunch and visit the abbey. After the visit we said goodbye to the last of our instructor from Merville-Franceville and were off to Brittany.
We arrived in Lorient at 6:00 and were quickly separated and sent off with our host families. Every student had a different family. I am staying with Christopher Hellec. He speaks decent English though he is hard to understand. Neither of his parents speak English so communication will be hard.
For dinner we had stew and then a cheese course and then a banana for desert. I showed Christopher my pictures from the trip and we played a few facebook games with each other. I went to bed a little early because I have to register for classes at 3:30 in the morning.
November 10
I woke up at 3:30 to register and I got into all the classes I wanted. Almost everybody on the trip is trying to get into managerial finance and there were only 21 spots left when I was done registering. I saved one spot in the class for Jesse.
I woke up for the second time at 7:00. Christopher’s classes start at 8:00 every day. We had yoghurt and drinkable yoghurt for breakfast with a little pastry. The French don’t do much for breakfast.
Spencer was the first one at the school so I sat and talked to him as people slowly started coming in. It was an hour before the whole group got there. I guess Spencer has his own guest house and some very good English speakers.
We did a little meet and greet with some French students and ate crescents and coffee for a couple hours. The French spend a lot of time sitting around and talking. The room we were in was too small so we couldn’t move around and talk to new people very easily. It was an awkward situation.
From our second breakfast half of us went to a German class and the other half to a Spanish class. Obviously I was in the German class. I was surprised that the students there didn’t speak very good German. Tom was astounded. They had been learning German for 6-10 years. He said that two months at the Goethe institute would have been the equivalent to how much they knew. The German teacher really didn’t have much to talk about and it was not a very good class. We talked about the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall falling, which was the day before.
We had lunch at the school. The cafeteria is run by Sodexho, which is the same food service provider that Bethel has. The food was nowhere near as good. I guess it was really overpriced too so the French students avoid eating there.
After lunch we had a long discussion with the French students who are coming to Bethel this spring about the differences between the US and France. Then we did pretty much the same thing with an English class.
Right now I’m hoping that dinner will be soon because it is almost 8:00. We are going to play trivial pursuit in English after dinner tonight and that sounds like fun. An English foster kid who stayed or is currently staying with my family showed up tonight. She speaks fluent French so now I have a good translator.
November 11
November 16
Point du Raz
November 17
Today was my last morning in Brittany. I got all of my stuff packed up and they took me to the train station. I said goodbye to Christopher and his mom. They stuck around for a bit and when they finally left Christopher started crying and he gave Tom a hug as we left. I guess Yan feels like he has to take him on the trip to the states this spring because of this experience.
November 18
We went to the Louvre today. We were there for almost two hours. Paul got all the way there before he realized that he forgot his museum pass. He had to go all the way back on the subway to get it. The people at the entrance didn’t even glance over at our passes as we went in, so maybe he didn’t have to go back for his.
We saw the Mona Lisa of course. Spencer and I made up commentaries some of the paintings we passed. There were some more interesting paintings here than there were at the museum we went to yesterday.
There is a street that goes straight from the Louvre to the Arch de Triumph. We walked this street and ate at a burger place on the way. Our group split up and some of us went shopping and the rest went right to the Arch. I didn’t want to shop so I went to the Arch right away. Our passes let us go all the way to the top and there’s a nice view of the Eifel Tower from the top.
After the arch we decided to take the subway to a modern art museum which had some interesting parts but wasn’t that great. We ran into another group of Bethel students here and chatted for a little bit. We had actually ran into them on the way to the arch as well.
There are some major soccer games going on tonight. Algeria won the first one and France won the second one. The Algerians made a bunch of noise and set off some flares. They were still driving around the city honking their horns at 2 in the morning.
November 19
Today is our long day of travel from Paris to Prague. We left our hotel at 8:00. Not much to say besides I read my book, watched some movies, and did a little homework on the way. We went through Frankfurt and Dresden on the way. We had about 50 minutes in Dresden so we looked around a little. It’s a very nice and modern city. It’s a nice contrast from Paris.
We took a bus from the train station to our hotel. It’s the same bus we will be using these few days and it will drive us all the way back to Mittersill. The hotel is a 4 star, but I wouldn’t call it luxurious. A lot of people are sharing double beds or sleeping on fold out chairs or couches. I’m rooming with Kenny and Dan Chang in the highest room in the hotel. Climbing 79 steps with my luggage wasn’t fun but it’s a nice room.
November 20
The original plan was to leave at 7 for our day but after so many hours of traveling, Tom let us sleep in a bit. The bus ride to the glass blowing factory was longer than I thought it would be. It was around 2 hours long. The glassblowing factory wasn’t really that great. They didn’t even know we were coming. The glassblowing wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen many times at the Renaissance festival. We ate lunch at a place where we could see some glassblowing, but it wasn’t set up very well.
The afternoon was spent at the Skoda factory, which was a bit of a letdown. It was a lot like the Opel tour we went on only the tour guide wasn’t as good. Really this day could have been cut out of the trip.
November 21
This morning we had a tour of Prague. Our tour guide Fredrick is a good guy. I think he’s a communist and he has some serious discussions with Tom during the tour. After our tour and lunch we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. We looked around the city a little more and went to the Tesco.
For dinner we had a little buffet dinner on a boat. We went down the river for about 45 minutes and then came back up. The food wasn’t fantastic but it was fine. We walked around some more after the boat ride and I was starting to get tired. I went back to my room and finished my book. I guess I’ll have to start a new one on the way to the Schloss tomorrow.
November 22
We took our bus all the way to the Schloss today. It took somewhere around 6 hours. I slept some of the way and watched a movie. I must be getting used to traveling around because it was a really easy ride. We stopped at a truck stop diner for lunch. It felt really American only they had Austrian food.
When we got to the Schloss we all went back to our old rooms. It was almost like being home. We hooked up the projector in the classroom and watched “Away We Go”. It was a nice relaxing night after so much moving around.
November 23
We had class as usual but then we had some time to relax. I needed some time to do nothing after traveling so much. We watched “In Bruges” on the big screen.
November 24
We had a tour of the Nordica/Blizzard ski factory that is in Mittersill. I couldn’t hear the tour guide very well because it was in factory. It was really interesting how them make all of the designs for the skis and how different the wood was for each kind of ski. They don’t make any snowboards here, only skis.
November 25
Norm came and talked to us again. He rambles on an on so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. He’s a geneticist who’s been working for the UN for decades. We went to his house after dinner and had some time to chat. He had each one of us introduce ourselves. It’s weird when people talked about themselves because by this time I know them pretty well.
We watched the first episode of Band of Brothers which is really long. It’s a good thing we didn’t have class the next day. Some people want to watch the whole Band of Brothers series but I don’t think we’ll have time. I watched the whole thing back in Germany at the Goethe.
November 26
No class today because it’s thanksgiving. I got to sleep in and then do some reading for class and take a nap. Thanksgiving dinner was great. Tom found some turkeys at the supermarket and they cooked them up at the Schloss. We had mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy. We all sat at one big long table.
That night we played sardines with all of the lights off in the Schloss. It was more fun scaring people than looking for the people that were hiding. We finished off the night with a dance party in the auditorium. Lots of fun.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Now in France, trying to catch up on journaling
October 22
Our tests were due at noon, so after breakfast I finished mine up. It was for our International business class. I finally did my German test with Tom today and it went really well. We did a tour of the Guinness brewery and I bought a Guinness Rugby shirt for myself. We went to a pub that night and there were some people doing Irish dances.
October 23
We left our hotel by 5 in the morning because our flight left at 7. Our cab driver was very lively and he gave us some advice about what to do the next time we come to Ireland. For the next 9 days I’ll be with Jesse, Spencer, and Jake. We ran into Erik at the airport because his flight left at about the same time.
The flight didn’t feel long at all because I was sleeping the whole time. We arrived in Milan around 10 in the morning. We had to get bus tickets from the airport to the center of Milan because the airport is a long ways from the city center.
We couldn’t find the street that led to our hotel but a man walked up to us and asked us where we were going and gave us directions. We didn’t even have to ask him, he just knew that we were lost. The hotel wasn’t very far from the train station. It was on the fourth floor of the building and the elevator was so small that only two of us at a time could fit with our bags.
The manager was really nice and spoke English. He gave us a map and pointed out all of the places that we could go. One thing that is strange about Italy is that the people at the hotel hold onto your key for you. It’s nice that you don’t have to worry about carrying it around.
I realize that I’m writing a lot more now that we’re in Italy than I was at other places. I think that’s because I don’t have any homework to drag me down.
Once we had gotten settled I took a little nap and then we went out to eat. We ate at a little street café. We didn’t know that there’s almost always a flat service fee whenever you eat at a restaurant, but we had heard that eating in Italy is expensive. We visited a few stores and then went to the Duomo. I think it is the third biggest cathedral in the world.
We ate at the embassy for dinner. We’ve started to call McDonalds the embassy because it’s American and you are never more than 5 blocks away from one at any time. In fact there are two almost facing each other in front of the main train station.
We watched a little IT Crowd before going to bed a little early. It was really nice to get a full night’s sleep after such an early morning.
October 24
Our second day in Milan we slept in and got up to get our train reservations for the next day. We went to the train station but the system was more complicated than we thought and the lines were really long. We didn’t have our Eurail passes with us at the time so we didn’t want to risk waiting in line forever and maybe needing them.
The all day subway pass was only 3 Euro so we bought one of those each. We could have easily figured the ticket machine by ourselves but some gypsy followed us around and insisted on pushing all of the buttons herself. Then one of the people that worked at the subway came over and helped us. We had the machine set to English so we were having no problems. I guess we just looked helpless and the gypsy wanted our money.
We took the subway to the castle of Milan. It was huge, and was much more fortress-like than most of the other ones we visited. There we also about 20 cats playing in the moats inside and outside the castle. When we left the castle through another exit we found a little Celtic renaissance festival. There were people dressed up and they had little tents and they were selling things.
After the castle we walked around and found some authentic Italian brick oven pizza. It was very good and it was in a big oval shape.
Fortunately that night when we got back to the hotel the manager reminded us that it was daylight savings time. If he hadn’t told us we would have gotten to the train station an hour early and we would have been very confused.
October 25
Today we got up and paid for our hotel. It was a little less than 35 Euro a night each. The train ride to Bologna was 2 hours long and I just read my book the whole way there. When we got to Bologna we got lost because the streets are not labeled very well and the directions we had were a little confusing. Jake asked some policemen and they gave us directions to our hotel. Jake had to ask another person once we got closer to the hotel but eventually we got there.
Our room wasn’t quite ready so we had to wait in the lobby for a while. Me and Spencer made a run to McDonalds and bought some food for everybody. We wandered around the city for a while but there really isn’t much to see here. We found a big park with a fountain but the fountain was all dried up and sad looking. Once we had rested up at the park and visited the basilica (5th largest church in the world, it was originally going to be bigger than the others but it was scaled down so as not to be greater than those in the Vatican) and then napped at the hotel until dinner time.
Dinner was at a little restaurant not far from the hotel. The waiter and waitress both spoke English and the waiter probably was actually the manager or owner of the place. He joked with us and complained about us not knowing what anything on the menu was.
There was nothing to do after dinner so we went to the main town plaza and sat by the fountain. There were some fire jugglers who actually weren’t very good. They kept on dropping things but it was fun anyway.
October 26
We didn’t really know what to do today so we started working on a consumer behavior assignment where we had to watch people in stores. We had to do it sometime during free travel and we didn’t want to do it in Florence or Rome.
Once we finished the observation part of the assignment we walked around the city some more. Today was a very relaxed day. That night we went out to eat at a bar. They have a deal where you buy a drink and then you get to eat all the food you want. The food isn’t fantastic, but it was only 6 Euro so it was only a little more expensive than McDonalds would have been.
October 27
Our trip to Florence was probably our shortest trip during our free travel. When we got to Florence we were walking to our hotel and ran into Tom and Cheryl at an internet café. Jesse spotted Cheryl as he walked by.
Our hotel rooms are small but they’ll be ok. We explored the side of the river that our hotel was on and sat by the river for a while. We saw where the statue of David originally was, and there were some more sculptures there too.
We went to dinner with Erik and Tyler, who were staying at the youth hostel not far from our hotel. We went to the hostel and used their steam room, sauna, and pool.
October 28
We met up with Erik and Tyler and took the train to Cique Terra, which is by Pisa on the coast. We met up with Laura Christine and Stefanie at Cique Terra. Unfortunately they had to carry all of their luggage with them. A lot of train stations have lockers where you can stash stuff but not this one.
I forgot my swimsuit so I ran into one of the nearby stores and bought a Speedo. Don’t worry; nobody got a picture of me in it. We went from town to town on the train and went cliff jumping at one of them. Stefanie said that my legs were so white that they looked like flashlights in the water.
By the time we went to all 5 of the cities on the coast it was getting late and it was dark. Tyler was the only one who went to see the tower of Pisa. I didn’t think it would be worth it at night. I guess I’ll have to come back to Italy later in life.
October 29
This was our last full day in Florence. We went and saw the real David early in the morning. It wasn’t really worth the ten Euro to get in. The museum didn’t have much besides David. We went to the markets where they sell tourist junk and ran into Jen, Betsy, and Christy. I didn’t even know they were in Italy. We made plans to meet up for dinner that night. We wandered around the city some more and went to the far side of the river. There is a big garden there and we walked through it for a couple hours. We ran into those three girls again by accident. We talked to them a little and went our separate ways
After walking through the garden we went to the river and then went to find some lunch. We were wandering towards an overlook of the city when we saw Jen Betsy and Christy eating at a café. So that was the third time we saw them that day without planning it.
The overlook was nice and we met up with all the people that were in Florence that night. There were 11 of us out of 26 on the trip. We tried to watch the sunset but it was cloudy and there was an awful violin player whose violin was way out of tune. He kept playing the first 12 notes of ode to joy and then playing some random notes. A random guy walking by came and tuned his violin for him but he still couldn’t play anything.
The group of us took a long walk to what Erik said was the best Gelato in Florence. It was good but probably not worth the long walk. The 11 of us ate dinner together at a place Tom recommended. I had veal for the first time. It wasn’t all that unusual.
October 30
We left for Rome in the morning. Rome was my city to book a hotel for so I had to guide us once we got there. I would say that I got us to our hotel with less trouble than the other guys had. The directions were really easy though. We stayed at the fountain terrace hostel which was the cheapest place we stayed for free travel at 15 euro a night each. It was also the most run down place we stayed. There was only one outlet in the room and the wiring wasn’t run through the wall, it was just a cable running out of the wall and onto the floor. The bathrooms were down the hall and none of them had soap or any way to dry your hands.
We met up with Anna, Kay, and Kelsey at the Trevi fountain and ate lunch with them there. We picked up some pizza and went to the Pantheon. The pantheon was smaller than I thought it would be. I didn’t know that it was just one big room.
We wanted to save some sights for the next day so we went to the Spanish steps for a while and then wandered over towards the Vatican. We sat in front of St Peter’s Basilica as the sun set. After a while we walked around and found some dinner.
October 31
We slept in a bit more than we planned but still got to the Coliseum and Roman Forum by noon or so. The Coliseum was huge and a fun site to see. I wish there had been better displays about the history of the place though. We bought our tickets at the forum because the lines there are about one quarter as long as they are at the Coliseum. The forum wasn’t really very interesting. There wasn’t any information about what was where or what happened there. Maybe we should have taken a tour.
Jesse wasn’t feeling so good so he went back to the hotel to rest. Spencer, Jake, and I took the subway to the Vatican. The subway system in Rome is really weird because it only has two lines. The Vatican museum was huge. It’s a big maze that takes hours to walk through. I could see people taking the whole day to get through the museum. Guess who we ran into randomly here, those three girls we saw three times in Florence.
The final room of the museum is the Sistine Chapel. We couldn’t take pictures in Chapel but I snuck a few anyway. They’re all blurry or zoomed out too far. Jake got caught trying to take a picture and the guard tried to make him leave. Jake was able to get back in though.
We went inside St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s huge. It is a lot bigger than any of the other churches we went to. There was a mass going on, so we listened in for twenty minutes or so while we walked through the basilica.
November 1
We didn’t have to wake up too early for our flight. We left around 8 and took a taxi to the airport. Only Ryanair and Ezjet fly out of this airport that we went to. They are the two cheapest airlines in Europe. The airport looked like some temporary buildings stuck together and all the departure gates were in the same room.
The flight went fine. Flying Ezjet is much better than Ryanair. It’s just much less stressful because they don’t worry about weight and size limits for luggage. When we got to Paris it was drizzling. We had to take a bus to the subway. The subways in Paris are awful for hauling your luggage through. There are several flights of steps to go up and down every time you transfer trains and you have to go through those one way gates which are fine for people but incredibly hard when bringing a suitcase through.
When we got out of the subway we went the wrong way and had to ask for directions. We asked at a little bakery and everybody in the bakery tried to help us out. It turns out that the subway station we left was within sight of our hotel.
It was still raining so we ate lunch at a diner right next to the hotel. We started seeing the rest of the group come up from the subway as we ate. They give you bread with every meal here but I ordered a hamburger and it came without a bun. I tried to use the French bread on the table to make a bun but it didn’t work well. The good news is that ketchup is free again and you don’t have to pay 10 or 50 cents for a packet like you have to in Italy.
Our tests were due at noon, so after breakfast I finished mine up. It was for our International business class. I finally did my German test with Tom today and it went really well. We did a tour of the Guinness brewery and I bought a Guinness Rugby shirt for myself. We went to a pub that night and there were some people doing Irish dances.
October 23
We left our hotel by 5 in the morning because our flight left at 7. Our cab driver was very lively and he gave us some advice about what to do the next time we come to Ireland. For the next 9 days I’ll be with Jesse, Spencer, and Jake. We ran into Erik at the airport because his flight left at about the same time.
The flight didn’t feel long at all because I was sleeping the whole time. We arrived in Milan around 10 in the morning. We had to get bus tickets from the airport to the center of Milan because the airport is a long ways from the city center.
We couldn’t find the street that led to our hotel but a man walked up to us and asked us where we were going and gave us directions. We didn’t even have to ask him, he just knew that we were lost. The hotel wasn’t very far from the train station. It was on the fourth floor of the building and the elevator was so small that only two of us at a time could fit with our bags.
The manager was really nice and spoke English. He gave us a map and pointed out all of the places that we could go. One thing that is strange about Italy is that the people at the hotel hold onto your key for you. It’s nice that you don’t have to worry about carrying it around.
I realize that I’m writing a lot more now that we’re in Italy than I was at other places. I think that’s because I don’t have any homework to drag me down.
Once we had gotten settled I took a little nap and then we went out to eat. We ate at a little street café. We didn’t know that there’s almost always a flat service fee whenever you eat at a restaurant, but we had heard that eating in Italy is expensive. We visited a few stores and then went to the Duomo. I think it is the third biggest cathedral in the world.
We ate at the embassy for dinner. We’ve started to call McDonalds the embassy because it’s American and you are never more than 5 blocks away from one at any time. In fact there are two almost facing each other in front of the main train station.
We watched a little IT Crowd before going to bed a little early. It was really nice to get a full night’s sleep after such an early morning.
October 24
Our second day in Milan we slept in and got up to get our train reservations for the next day. We went to the train station but the system was more complicated than we thought and the lines were really long. We didn’t have our Eurail passes with us at the time so we didn’t want to risk waiting in line forever and maybe needing them.
The all day subway pass was only 3 Euro so we bought one of those each. We could have easily figured the ticket machine by ourselves but some gypsy followed us around and insisted on pushing all of the buttons herself. Then one of the people that worked at the subway came over and helped us. We had the machine set to English so we were having no problems. I guess we just looked helpless and the gypsy wanted our money.
We took the subway to the castle of Milan. It was huge, and was much more fortress-like than most of the other ones we visited. There we also about 20 cats playing in the moats inside and outside the castle. When we left the castle through another exit we found a little Celtic renaissance festival. There were people dressed up and they had little tents and they were selling things.
After the castle we walked around and found some authentic Italian brick oven pizza. It was very good and it was in a big oval shape.
Fortunately that night when we got back to the hotel the manager reminded us that it was daylight savings time. If he hadn’t told us we would have gotten to the train station an hour early and we would have been very confused.
October 25
Today we got up and paid for our hotel. It was a little less than 35 Euro a night each. The train ride to Bologna was 2 hours long and I just read my book the whole way there. When we got to Bologna we got lost because the streets are not labeled very well and the directions we had were a little confusing. Jake asked some policemen and they gave us directions to our hotel. Jake had to ask another person once we got closer to the hotel but eventually we got there.
Our room wasn’t quite ready so we had to wait in the lobby for a while. Me and Spencer made a run to McDonalds and bought some food for everybody. We wandered around the city for a while but there really isn’t much to see here. We found a big park with a fountain but the fountain was all dried up and sad looking. Once we had rested up at the park and visited the basilica (5th largest church in the world, it was originally going to be bigger than the others but it was scaled down so as not to be greater than those in the Vatican) and then napped at the hotel until dinner time.
Dinner was at a little restaurant not far from the hotel. The waiter and waitress both spoke English and the waiter probably was actually the manager or owner of the place. He joked with us and complained about us not knowing what anything on the menu was.
There was nothing to do after dinner so we went to the main town plaza and sat by the fountain. There were some fire jugglers who actually weren’t very good. They kept on dropping things but it was fun anyway.
October 26
We didn’t really know what to do today so we started working on a consumer behavior assignment where we had to watch people in stores. We had to do it sometime during free travel and we didn’t want to do it in Florence or Rome.
Once we finished the observation part of the assignment we walked around the city some more. Today was a very relaxed day. That night we went out to eat at a bar. They have a deal where you buy a drink and then you get to eat all the food you want. The food isn’t fantastic, but it was only 6 Euro so it was only a little more expensive than McDonalds would have been.
October 27
Our trip to Florence was probably our shortest trip during our free travel. When we got to Florence we were walking to our hotel and ran into Tom and Cheryl at an internet café. Jesse spotted Cheryl as he walked by.
Our hotel rooms are small but they’ll be ok. We explored the side of the river that our hotel was on and sat by the river for a while. We saw where the statue of David originally was, and there were some more sculptures there too.
We went to dinner with Erik and Tyler, who were staying at the youth hostel not far from our hotel. We went to the hostel and used their steam room, sauna, and pool.
October 28
We met up with Erik and Tyler and took the train to Cique Terra, which is by Pisa on the coast. We met up with Laura Christine and Stefanie at Cique Terra. Unfortunately they had to carry all of their luggage with them. A lot of train stations have lockers where you can stash stuff but not this one.
I forgot my swimsuit so I ran into one of the nearby stores and bought a Speedo. Don’t worry; nobody got a picture of me in it. We went from town to town on the train and went cliff jumping at one of them. Stefanie said that my legs were so white that they looked like flashlights in the water.
By the time we went to all 5 of the cities on the coast it was getting late and it was dark. Tyler was the only one who went to see the tower of Pisa. I didn’t think it would be worth it at night. I guess I’ll have to come back to Italy later in life.
October 29
This was our last full day in Florence. We went and saw the real David early in the morning. It wasn’t really worth the ten Euro to get in. The museum didn’t have much besides David. We went to the markets where they sell tourist junk and ran into Jen, Betsy, and Christy. I didn’t even know they were in Italy. We made plans to meet up for dinner that night. We wandered around the city some more and went to the far side of the river. There is a big garden there and we walked through it for a couple hours. We ran into those three girls again by accident. We talked to them a little and went our separate ways
After walking through the garden we went to the river and then went to find some lunch. We were wandering towards an overlook of the city when we saw Jen Betsy and Christy eating at a café. So that was the third time we saw them that day without planning it.
The overlook was nice and we met up with all the people that were in Florence that night. There were 11 of us out of 26 on the trip. We tried to watch the sunset but it was cloudy and there was an awful violin player whose violin was way out of tune. He kept playing the first 12 notes of ode to joy and then playing some random notes. A random guy walking by came and tuned his violin for him but he still couldn’t play anything.
The group of us took a long walk to what Erik said was the best Gelato in Florence. It was good but probably not worth the long walk. The 11 of us ate dinner together at a place Tom recommended. I had veal for the first time. It wasn’t all that unusual.
October 30
We left for Rome in the morning. Rome was my city to book a hotel for so I had to guide us once we got there. I would say that I got us to our hotel with less trouble than the other guys had. The directions were really easy though. We stayed at the fountain terrace hostel which was the cheapest place we stayed for free travel at 15 euro a night each. It was also the most run down place we stayed. There was only one outlet in the room and the wiring wasn’t run through the wall, it was just a cable running out of the wall and onto the floor. The bathrooms were down the hall and none of them had soap or any way to dry your hands.
We met up with Anna, Kay, and Kelsey at the Trevi fountain and ate lunch with them there. We picked up some pizza and went to the Pantheon. The pantheon was smaller than I thought it would be. I didn’t know that it was just one big room.
We wanted to save some sights for the next day so we went to the Spanish steps for a while and then wandered over towards the Vatican. We sat in front of St Peter’s Basilica as the sun set. After a while we walked around and found some dinner.
October 31
We slept in a bit more than we planned but still got to the Coliseum and Roman Forum by noon or so. The Coliseum was huge and a fun site to see. I wish there had been better displays about the history of the place though. We bought our tickets at the forum because the lines there are about one quarter as long as they are at the Coliseum. The forum wasn’t really very interesting. There wasn’t any information about what was where or what happened there. Maybe we should have taken a tour.
Jesse wasn’t feeling so good so he went back to the hotel to rest. Spencer, Jake, and I took the subway to the Vatican. The subway system in Rome is really weird because it only has two lines. The Vatican museum was huge. It’s a big maze that takes hours to walk through. I could see people taking the whole day to get through the museum. Guess who we ran into randomly here, those three girls we saw three times in Florence.
The final room of the museum is the Sistine Chapel. We couldn’t take pictures in Chapel but I snuck a few anyway. They’re all blurry or zoomed out too far. Jake got caught trying to take a picture and the guard tried to make him leave. Jake was able to get back in though.
We went inside St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s huge. It is a lot bigger than any of the other churches we went to. There was a mass going on, so we listened in for twenty minutes or so while we walked through the basilica.
November 1
We didn’t have to wake up too early for our flight. We left around 8 and took a taxi to the airport. Only Ryanair and Ezjet fly out of this airport that we went to. They are the two cheapest airlines in Europe. The airport looked like some temporary buildings stuck together and all the departure gates were in the same room.
The flight went fine. Flying Ezjet is much better than Ryanair. It’s just much less stressful because they don’t worry about weight and size limits for luggage. When we got to Paris it was drizzling. We had to take a bus to the subway. The subways in Paris are awful for hauling your luggage through. There are several flights of steps to go up and down every time you transfer trains and you have to go through those one way gates which are fine for people but incredibly hard when bringing a suitcase through.
When we got out of the subway we went the wrong way and had to ask for directions. We asked at a little bakery and everybody in the bakery tried to help us out. It turns out that the subway station we left was within sight of our hotel.
It was still raining so we ate lunch at a diner right next to the hotel. We started seeing the rest of the group come up from the subway as we ate. They give you bread with every meal here but I ordered a hamburger and it came without a bun. I tried to use the French bread on the table to make a bun but it didn’t work well. The good news is that ketchup is free again and you don’t have to pay 10 or 50 cents for a packet like you have to in Italy.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)