Passin' time in the airport

It finally came time to board the plane, but after the first few passengers had gone past the desk (including two of our girls) there was some kind of hold-up and we ended up stuck in the boarding line for about another 20 minutes while they got everything sorted out.

We finally reached Palermo at 1:30 pm, and then it was another 45 minutes from the airport to the city itself. We got on a bus in the train station that was supposed to take us to Politeama, the district that our apartment was in, but we got off the bus too early and had to walk the rest of the way to the apartment using the map from my guidebook and a map Jess A. had printed off of the computer as guides. The problem was that neither of the maps had any street names and half of the streets were not marked with street signs. Finally we stopped into a little cafe to ask for directions (and get a bite to eat– we hadn’t eaten anything since the airport in Venice!). After walking past the correct street again, we doubled back and found the apartment building at long last. By that time it was almost 6 pm!

That night we had planned to go to a Jazz club, but it was in a section of town that my guidebook had advised against going to at night (it’s supposedly where the mafia hopefuls hang out). Instead, we got directions to the closest supermarket and bought ingredients for dinner to be cooked by Danyelle and Kate in the apartment.Dinner was fantastic. Danyelle loves to cook as a hobby, and she and Kate made kebabs and ravioli for us.

Our chefs

Dinner was followed by ice cream and girls’ night in, and we got to know each other really well. It was such a good time!

For day 2 of Sicily we had unanimously voted to go to the beach. Mind you, this was October 25th and I believe that Connecticut had already gotten some snow. It was not the warmest beach day ever, but that didn’t stop us from donning our swimsuits, grabbing our towels and hopping the bus to Mondello Lido, the local beach.

The beach was so much fun. As soon as we stepped onto the sand we were adopted by a huge dog we named Todd. Todd followed us down the beach and parked it next to our towels where he would bark and growl at everyone who walked by. The beach was nearly deserted, and the few locals who were there were all wearing jeans ans sweatshirts while we were running around in the surf in our swimsuits. The water was so nice and we took some great pictures with Danyelle’s new camera, named Carlos (we watched “The Hangover” waaay too many times those first few weeks). We also taught Danyelle how to do a cartwheel, apparently she had never learned!

Todd

We stopped for gelato down the street and Todd followed us, chasing mopeds and almost getting hit on numerous occasions. We eventually managed to ditch him and get on the bus back to Palermo. By the time we got back to Politeama it was almost dark and we looked pretty silly walking through the streets with our beach gear. The temperature had also dropped off so we were freezing and had our towels wrapped around us for warmth, scurrying back to our apartment to take nice warm showers.

We went out to dinner at a nice trattoria, and there was a really nice Italian family at the next table who wanted to know where we were from. We told them “California and New York”, which is only partially true, but easier than saying “California, Oregon, Connecticut, and West Virginia”. Plus, nobody knows where Connecticut, Oregon, and West Virginia are. The cashier tried to rip us off two euro, but, and I quote, “Danyelle kicked some ass and got our two euro back”.

After dinner I finally got my cannoli and it was delicious! They don’t have them up in the north, so I had to wait until Sicily to have a good cannoli.

We turned in early that night because we were leaving early the next morning.

And get up early we did. Check out wasn’t until 11:00, but we wanted to see the temples before we left which meant we had to leave or else we wouldn’t have enough time. We wrote the landlord a note (in Italian!) telling them to call us if they needed us to come back for any reason, wrapped it around the key and slipped it under the office door. We then took all of our bags and headed down to the train station, were we left them in the luggage storage and hopped on the train to Agrigento, the city due south across the island. On the train, I had forgotten to validate my ticket which is a 50 euro fine, but since everyone else had validated theirs the conductor let me off with a warning of “prossima, attenzione!” and wrote the date and the time in pen on the top of my ticket. Crisis #2 averted. Score: CIMBA 2, Sicily 0.

3 hours later we were in Agrigento, a pristine little town by the water. Hopped a bus down to the temples and watched as the bus drove right past them without stopping. When the bus stopped at a light about 1/4 mile down the road, we asked the driver and he told us we had missed it and let us off. We had a nice walk back up the hill. CIMBA, 2; Sicily 1. The temples were amazing. They are some of the best-preserved Greek ruins in the world. Spent all afternoon walking around taking pictures of everything.  I did accidentally throw my camera at one point: my camera strap had broken in Cinque Terre, and i was holding it in my hand when I felt a bug crawling on my arm and had a little spaz attack. When we finished walking around the temples, we got back on the bus to the train station. We had budgeted enough time to get back to Palermo, get our bags, and get to the airport with enough time to maybe have a bit to eat before the plane left at 6: 25 pm.

The Temples

We boarded the train on time, and I even remembered to validate my ticket this time. About an hour into the ride, the conductor came running through saying something in Italian about passengers going to Palermo. We figured all this meant was that we were on the correct train and didn’t think much of it. Another hour later he came back to check our tickets. When he saw we were supposed to be going to Palermo, he tells us “you’re on the wrong train!”

It turns out that in the station in Agrigento there were two trains end to end at the same platform, and they went together to the first few stops then split and one went north to Palermo while the other went east to Syracusa. We had gotten on the wrong end of the train, and were now two hours out of our way in the middle of Sicily. Apparently when to conductor had run down the train earlier he was telling all of the passengers headed to Palermo to get on the front train. Luckily, the conductor told us, there was a connecting train at one of the next stops that would take us on to Palermo. We asked him how long it would take to get there because we had a plane to catch, and he told us we should arrive in Palermo at 6. Allowing some time to get our bags and our tickets, plus another 45 minute train ride, and we were looking at an estimated airport arrival of 6:45 pm at the earliest. 20 minutes after our flight leaves. We asked him if there was any way to get there faster, like a taxi or something, but he said that a taxi would be super expensive and get us there about the same time.

Suddenly, he tells us “wait here” and runs off down the train again. he comes back a few minutes later with two men who he introduces as the “pilots” of the connecting train to Palermo, and told us to follow them onto the next train. He then asked us if we were on Facebook, and we told him yes after a moment of confusion in which Denise pulled out her phrasebook (he had a very strong accent. He also asked who was the “chief” and we all pointed to Danyelle thinking he had said “chef”). Right then we pulled into the station, and he jumped off the train and started copying our names from the flight confirmation onto half a napkin he had gotten from somewhere. When he got to my name he stopped and said “Battinelli! Italiana?” to which everyone except me replied “Si! Si!” He then said to me in Italian “but you don’t speak Italian?!?” to which I replied “Sono Americana!”

So yeah.

We boarded the next train and all sat together to talk about what to do next. It was pretty obvious we were going to miss our flight, and we did not know if there were any other flights out to Venice that night. Staying overnight was our last resort, however. Some of us had early classes the next morning , and the CIMBA attendance policy is so strict that if you miss one class they dock you a third of a letter grade. Even if you’re stranded in a foreign country with no way to get back. We thought about calling the emergency number to tell them we might not make it back that night and not to worry, but we decided to hold off until we knew for sure what we were going to do.

As soon as the train started moving, Giovanni (or “Johnny” as he had us call him. One of the conductors– we’re not sure what the other one’s name is) called for one of us to go up to the front of the train. We sent Jess and Denise, Jess because she was the one that had taken on the role of “leader” and Denise because she has the best Italian out of all of us. It turns out that Johnny and Conductor #2 wanted to help us find another flight, so they called the airlines for us and even used their own phones when ours ran out of minutes. All the while they were chatting with Jess, Denise and Kate in Italian and they were answering in English. They wanted to know what ethnicity everyone was (this is a recurring theme with Italians) ad surprisingly guessed correctly for most of them. Obviously the knew I was Italian by virtue of my last name, and every time one of us joined the conversation they asked “Battinelli?’ until it was my turn.

“Battinelli?”

“Si, Battinelli.”

“New York?”

“Si”

“I have cousins that live in Little Italy!”

“Oh! I’ve been there!”

And that was pretty much the whole conversation.

Thanks to Johnny and Conductor #2 we found out that there was one more flight from Palermo to Venice that night leaving at 7:35, with Alitalia. It would be cutting it close, but it was plausible. If everything went as planned, we would have 9 minutes between our arrival at the train station and the next train to the airport. Unfortunately for us, the train we were on was running late so we had less than two minutes to collect our bags, buy our tickets, and get on the train before it left.

As soon as the train stopped we jumped off and RAN to the bag storage room. As soon as Kate had gotten her bag she ran off to the ticket counter to get our tickets, and Denise paid for all the bags at once to save time. At the same time we jumped off the train, so did Conductor #2. He went over to the airport shuttle and held it so it wouldn’t leave without us! We crowded onto the airport train, still waiting for Kate to come back with the tickets, when she finally came running up with 7 tickets in her hand, validated and everything! As the train started to pull away from the station, our conductor friends knocked on the outside of the door and waved. “GRAZIE!!” we shouted through the glass.

We were gonna make it!

45 minutes later we arrived in the airport, and after taking a ride up and down in the elevator for a few minutes we finally found the check in area We ran down the row of desks until we found Windjet, the airline we were supposed to fly with, just in case by some miracle our flight had been delayed. We showed them our boarding pass and they shook their heads, telling us our flight had left on time 1/2 and hour ago. Of course it had. They then pointed us in the direction of the Alitalia ticket counter for our plan B, which was to take that Alitalia flight at 7:35. The time was now 7:00, which was cutting it close and probably too late to get tickets under normal circumstances, but by some stroke of luck the flight had been delayed 20 minutes and was now set to take off at 7:55, which gave us enough time! We got our tickets for 84 Euro apiece, checked in, raced through security, and boarded the plane in what had to be a record 45 minutes.  We were the last ones to board, and as soon as we were seated the plane began taxiing to the runway– 10 minutes early! it was like they were waiting for us . Before the flight left our conductor friends called us to see if we had made it, and were happy to hear that we had!

On the plane! Oh yeah...

The flight back was actually enjoyable and went rather quickly. We were all relieved that we would definitely make it back to PDG that night, and with quite a story to boot! (Our story actually made the yearbook, too!)

Fabio picked us up in Marco Polo Airport in his taxi yet again for the hour long drive back to Paderno. By now it was almost 9:00 and we hadn’t eaten anything all day, so Fabio stopped at McDonalds so we could get food to bring back with us–no eating in the taxi though!

Here are my pictures from the Sicilian adventure: Let’s Play Mafia

First Formal Dinner

In their quest to turn us into effective business leaders, CIMBA made us take a seminar on business etiquette and we get to practice our etiquette at 3 formal dinners throughout the semester. At these events we dress in our finest attire and get bussed to fancy restaurants for fantastic food and wine, and all of the professors come as well. Our first formal diner was at Hotel Fior in the next town over. This dinner had a delicious antipasto buffet and the best risotto I have ever had–it had pumpkin and black truffle! Dessert was delicious as well, they served us millefoglie and espresso. They also took our pictures for the yearbook.

The second dinner was at Ristorante Barbesin. At this dinner we got inducted to the  study abroad honor society, Phi Beta Delta. There was a slight snag when Christina was trying to put the medal around my neck it got stuck on a bobby pin Denise had put in my hair! The food at Barbesin was better than Fior, but Fior had the really great antipasto buffet.

Dessert at Ristorante Barbesin

I should mention that my next door neighbor Denise acted as my stylist and hairdresser for the two dinners. She did such a good job on my hair for the first dinner that she had three other people ask her for the second dinner to do their hair! We’re still working on how she’ll do it for the last dinner

Stylist Denise and I

First formal dinner hair

Second formal dinner hair

We also celebrated a few 21st birthdays at the second formal dinner, and had a little after-party in the pizzeria still dressed in our nice clothes! A few girls (including myself) had not bothered to change our shoes, but right at the time we were about to walk down there one of the professors drove by in his car and offered us a lift! How lucky is that!

When we got back to campus we discovered a cat that had followed some students home from the pizzeria before us, and this little kitty then followed us upstairs to our floor. Kate couldn’t be bothered by it, but Russel, Jess, and I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. Russel did pick it up and put it back outside eventually though.

Russell petting the gatto

Next post (if I can get it in before the end of the semester) will be Sicily, and boy is there a story to tell!

Miramare

The Saturday following the travel week we took a class field trip to Redipuglia, Miramare, and Trieste with European Cultural Studies class. It was cool to get off campus and see the surrounding area, I feel like every weekend we’ve been jetting of to other countries (and we pretty much have!). We boarded the bus early in the morning to go to Redipuglia where they have a huge WWI memorial and a small museum. The memorial has all the names of the soldiers who died, and I saw a lot of surnames that I recognized. I found a Battinelli as well, Catullo Battinelli. I don’t recognize the name but its cool nonetheless! I also found a Colosi and a few Conte’s among others. The view from the top was amazing as well.
The next stop on the trip was Castello di Miramare, a white castle right on the Adriatic Sea with beautiful gardens. This was also used as a headquarters for the US Army during the world wars. Had the best tiramisu ever in a little cafe in the gardens!

Castello Miramare

The last stop on our grand tour of Northeastern Italy was the city of Trieste itself. We were given time to run around and explore the city as long as we were back on the bus by a certain time. We were each given a map and the emergency cell phone number in case we got lost, and then we were off. The girls wanted to stop for Chinese food again (I feel like we’ve been eating that a lot) so instead of going with them I went exploring with some of the guys. After wandering aimlessly for a few minutes we decided to try to find the Castello S. Giusto in the center of the city. It was up on top of a big hill where we ran into a few more Cimbites. Kendall, Jeremy and I were the only ones willing to pay the 3.50 Euro to look around inside. It was pretty cool– the dungeon area downstairs was full of Roman antiques like statues and mosaics, while the upstairs was full of weapons like swords, pikes, and crossbows. It was pretty sweet.

View from Castello S. Giusto

Yes, we did make it back to the bus on time!

Here are all of my pictures from the trip. The second half is from our second formal dinner! Trieste and Barbesin

The last stop of the travel week was Vienna, Austria. A place where history is literally everywhere, as are concerts, operas, and ballets.

We arrived in Vienna at 4:00 pm, after a 6 1/2 hour train ride and hopped a tram that would take us closer to our hostel. We got on the right tram, unfortunately it was going in the wrong direction so we rode it to the end and then back again. When we finally arrived at the right tram stop or hostel was nowhere in sight, so we split  up and our group found it first

I did some much-needed laundry, but the washers in the hostel were so tiny! It’s a good thing I was only travelling for three more days, or I would’ve been out of luck. Hit up KFC for dinner. Ihave found that I  eat more American fast food here than I ever do at home!

The next day was our big sighseeing in Vienna day. We took the subway to the museum district and looked for the Hofburg Palace for about 15 minutes before we realized it was the building that we were walking around. We visited the Imperial Apartments, which included the Royal Silver Collection and a museum dedicated to Empress Elizabeth. Exciting stuff. I don’t know how anyone could have any use for that much silverware and china. Empress Elizabeth was an interesting character. She was married to Franz Joseph and absolutely obsessed with her appearence. She eventually got depressed and then was stabbed by a radical while visiting Geneva.

Hofburg Palace

The back of Hofburg Palace

After the Imperial apartments we walked around a bit, and a guy in an old-fashioned costume sold us tickets to a concerto. He seemed legit to us, but Kate kept getting sketched out and walking away. We got a picture with him too. He told us that the dress code was casual, but we still liked the idea of getting dressed up so we decided to do some shopping that night to find dresses. I didn’t find one but I got a nice winter jacket instead

Mr. Anton

Contiued walking around in i big circle around the museum district after we bought our tickets, and found a big circus in front of the City Hall called Circus Roncalli. Didn’t go inside, but it was still pretty cool.  Got some really good Chinese food near the city hall as well.

The next morning we went down to the train station to get our tickets back to Venice, and then we took the metro down to the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. Did not get a ticket to go inside, but the grounds themselves were amazing. Tons of gardens, a big fountain, a maze, and a huge monument on top of a hill.

Summer Palace

That night was the concert, which was awesome. There was a small orchestra, two opera singers, two ballerinas, and an emcee who switched back and forth from English to German so often that sometimes it did not register that I could understand him. The concert hall was smaller than we had expected, but the music was great! While we were at the concert the boys and Kate went to see a movie. I think we had a better night than they did!

At the concert!

The next day we left early to catch the train back to Venice, and we all made it but two laggards who had to take a later train that took way longer to get back!

We were so glad to get back to Paderno! After living out of a small bag for 9 days and running to catch trains and buses and subways it was fantastic to stay in one place and have good food–at least until the next weekend!

Here is the link to my travel week one pictures again: Travel Week 1

Me in the Old Town Square

We left Munich early on Tuesday morning for Prague, which is in the Czech Republic for those of you who are geographically challenged.

The train ride was super long– 8 hours, I believe. It took us pretty much the whole day to get there, and we arrived after dark. That was fun, trying to find the apartment in the dark and the rain in a city where the streets are designed for you to get lost! (No lie, our tour guide told us that the city was designed so that when Prague was invaded by enemy troops, the people would lock themselves in the buildings and the invaders would get lost in the streets!)

The apartment we stayed in was super nice, and had a kitchen so I was finally able to make myself a cup of tea! I brought some with me to Italy, but there’s no place to boil water around here, which is unfortunate. Danyelle, the aspiring chef of our group, has been hit particularly hard by this.

Our Kitchen

The first night we took a short walk across the Charles bridge and saw the city of Prague at night. All of the buildings look the same as they did hundreds of years ago, and the castle and St. Vitus cathedral looked so beautiful all lit up at night. Our tour guide (from the next day) told us that Prague is one of the most well-preserved cities in the world, and it shows. Just walking around the streets I can picture ladies with big poofy dresses walking in the same place that I am now. It helps that there are horse drawn carriages everywhere bringing tourists on tours of the city.

The next day everyone planned to take a free walking tour of the city. The flyers said that the tour was going to leave from the front of Starbucks at 10:00, so around 9:30 Jess K and I walked down to the Starbucks on the other side of the Charles bridge for breakfast, thinking we would just leave with the tour at 10. As 10:00 was creeping closer, the paranoid in me wanted to make absolutely sure that we were here on the right day at the right time, so we asked the barrista who told us that the tour was to leave from the Starbucks in the Old Town Square, not the one we were currently in. I downed the rest of my coffee and we were off, running back across the Charles bridge, trying to follow the complimentary map (it was from Starbucks so, of course, all of the Starbucks in the city were represented on the map but other than that it was not terribly accurate). On the way, we passed several other groups of CIMBA students on their way to find the same tour we were trying to find, only they were going in the wrong direction! Jess and I yelled to them that they were going the wrong way, but the first group just kept walking, thinking we must be mistaken. the second group we saw turned around to follow us, but we were in such a hurry to get across town that we lost them in the crowd.

By the time we found the Old Town Square, it was 9:55- we had 5 minutes t find the tour, which said it was leaving from the front of the Tourist Information Center. Well, sure enough, there were a bunch of tour guides standing out in front of the Tourist Information Center with their tours advertised on their umbrellas, but none of the logos matched the one on the map and none of the tour guides there seemed to know where the tour guide we were looking for could be. We even asked inside of the tourist Information Office, but nobody seemed to know.

The Astronomical clock in the Old Town Square

There was another guide at the pick-up point that was giving a free tour but his did not start until 10:30. Thinking this was the best way to go, Jess and I wandered around the Old Town Square for the next 30 minutes through the market in the middle of the square. We also happened upon the Starbucks, where I asked about the tour one last time only to hear that we had missed it by just a few minutes and they were probably already in some other square down the street and we could catch up with them if we went there. Well, not even knowing where the hell we were in the first place, we decided to stick with the 10:30 tour.

This turned out to be a fantastic choice. Two other guys from our program ended up on the tour with us. Our tour guide was a Mexican who had been traveling for a number of years before settling down in Prague. He had a  job teaching English before he was one day asked by his friend to be a tour guide because his English was pretty good. This guy had THE funniest laugh in the world. It was ridiculous. Additionally, while giving us his spiel on the Old Town Square he recounted a time some famous musician had performed there, complete with singing and dancing. He also found an unused tram ticket on the street and gave it to Jess.

The CIMBA representation on the tour

Jess and I took our time getting back to the apartment, stopping on the way for what Jess likes to call “European-style hot dogs” which are sort of like American hot dogs except that the bun is just a roll with a hole driven through it. We also stopped by the river to chill for a while and feed the ducks with some leftover hot dog roll.

Duckies!

Had a pretty uneventful night, did a lot of people-watching

The next morning I woke up with terrible stomach cramps, so I stayed in all morning and made myself some more tea . Around 2:00 I finally went out for a walk, once again with Jess K. She was sort of like my travel buddy for the rest of the trip. This time we took a more leisurely stroll and stopped to get some souvenirs from the stands set up along the Charles Bridge. I really wanted to see the inside of Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, so we made our way up there, following the same route the tour guide had taken us the day before (I didn’t know any other way to get there). We didn’t end up going inside the castle (you had to pay for that) but we did go inside of the cathedral, which was gorgeous. Jess found it shocking when I told her that there were people buried in there, just like in a lot of cathedrals and basilicas in Europe, until we cane to some of the alcoves that had the actual sarcophagi with the sculptures of the people on the top. We sort of wished we knew Czech at that point, because we couldn’t read any of the signs to figure out who was in there.

St. Vitus Cathedral

We did meet up with some Furmites (kids from Furman in South Carolina that also are on our program) inside of the cathedral who were on a castle tour at the time, and they told us that the inside of the castle was sort of cool but nothing special, which made me feel better about missing it. We did wait until 6:00 to see the Gold Road where all the alchemists lived, because it was free after 6. It was a cute little street, but I can’t see why anyone would pay to see it.

Jess K on the Gold Road

Our next stop was “Paris Street”, a street that was designed to look like the ones in Paris. The problem is, when they were renovating the buildings they ran out of funds after they had finished only one side. So only one side looks like Paris, the other side just looks like Prague. Still cool in my opinion. This street also has the reputation for being the most expensive street in all of Eastern Europe. All the designers have stores here: Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Burberry; you name it, it’s here. We decided to pay it a visit because Jess wanted a pair of designer sunglasses as her major purchase in Europe. She didn’t end up getting them here, not only because it is the MOST expensive place to shop like I said before, but all of the shops were closing because it was almost 8:00 by the time we got down there.

Stayed in that night as my stomach cramps returned with a vengeance. Not fun . Did get some reading done though.

It was just as well because we had to leave for Vienna bright and early the next morning!

Oktoberfest

On Friday afternoon Jess, Mike, and I took the bus at 4:00 pm to Bassano, where the closest train station is, to get our rail passes validated and catch the train to Padova, only to find that the next train to Padova was actually a 2 hour bus ride. Our reason for going to Padova was that the overnight train to Munich was leaving from that station at 11:28 pm, but we figured we would go early to look around a little bit. I had not considered that most things would be closed at 6pm and that it would be too dark to really do any sightseeing. Plus, the area around the train station was not the nicest part of town. Actually, it reminded me a lot of Chinatown in New York.

About an hour later the rest of the group taking the overnight train showed up and we walked around together, a group of about 15 American students each lugging a week’s worth of luggage ambling around the streets of Padova at night. We must have been a sight. We got some really good Chinese food for dinner (everyone was sick of pasta at this point, and like I said, it was like Chinatown), and stopped at a cafe to wait out the remaining two hours before we went up to the platform to wait for the train.

waiting for the train

Because I booked my reservation only a week before I left for Italy, the only cabins left were the six-person couchettes or the first class, single person sleepers. Well because I also did not know anyone at this point, rather than take my chances with 5 strangers I went for the single room (Thanks Dad ). It was custom. I had a whole cabin to myself, with a bathroom and a shower and there was a German lady who showed me to my cabin, and then woke me up in the morning (at 5:45!) and brought me one of those little airline breakfasts and a coffee. There was a couple in the cabin next door from New Hampshire who were very nice, they were also headed for Oktoberfest and they offered to share some of their wine with me.

We arrived in Munich bright and early at 6:30 in the morning, and after a quick shower and coffee i hopped off the train much more awake than my friends in the 6 person couchettes, who were still groggy. I shared some of my breakfast with them , to be nice

We checked into our hostel, then went back to the train station to meet up with the students that had taken a chartered bus all the way from Paderno to Munich overnight. I don’t think they got much sleep either.

The first thing we did was walk around the city a bit, and we found a beautiful church in the middle of one of the squares. Every other shop on the street was selling Lederhosen and Dirndls, which, to my surprise, ALL of the germans were wearing. Some even came in groups wearing matching costumes. Hordes and hordes of Germans in lederhosen.

That afternoon we took a tour of Dachau, a concentration camp on the outskirts of Munich. Apparently Dachau was the “model”concentration camp that they used as a guide for all of the other camps. It’s were they trained the officers, tried out different kinds of toxic gas, and they even had a “school of torture”. Our guide was really good, he was from Ireland and really gave us a good idea of how terrible things were there. On the ride back we asked him about good places to go in Munich, and he suggested Olympia park where they held the Olympics some time in the seventies, I believe.

Following his advice, that’s where we headed for the afternoon. The first place we stopped in the park (or it might have been right outside of the park) was the BMW Welt and BMW Museum. Oh Em Gee. I don’t even like cars, but I still thought this place was really cool. The Welt was like a showroom/interactive museum where you can look at the cars and sit in them, and it had kiosks and exhibits where you could drive a virtual car and see what innovations they were coming up with for the future. Cool stuff. We only went into the lobby of the actual museum (you had to pay to go in) but just in the lobby there were these really nice, antique looking cars, and then in the next room was a futuristic concept car. This thing was so cool.

After the BMW Welt/Museum we walked over to the park itself and went up into this big space needle looking thing in the middle of the park.The view from up there was incredible– you could see all of Munich and the surrounding countryside, all the way to the huge Alps way in the distance. We were there right at sunset as well, which made it that much more beautiful.

From the top of the space needle

The next day was the big day: Oktoberfest. We had a reservation from 12-5 in the Hofbrau-Festzelt tent, which is the biggest tent in the whole place. We’re talking massive. And this tent is mostly full of Americans and Italians, and some Germans too just because they’re everywhere.

The inside of the Hofbrau tent

Oktoberfest itself is like a gigantic carnival with rides and games, and with these huge beer tents all around. Our reservations came with vouchers for two liters of beer and half a chicken each, and we got to sit in the tent for five hours and listen to the band (all dressed in lederhosen as well) play the same three songs over and over again. Two of the songs were in German, during one of which you were supposed to raise your mug and toast. They played this one after almost every song. The third song that they played the whole time was the one that goes “Heeeee-eeeeey Baby! I wanna kno-oo-ow, if you’ll be my girl”. Of course, all of the Americans loved that one (and danced to it every time, too). My friend Jess actually bought a dirndl and wore it to the tent. She looked so cute in it!

The band in the Hofbrou tent

Here are my pictures from the whole travel break, the first third are Munich. I didn’t bring my camera to Oktoberfest, though!

Travel Week I

Next up, Prague!

The next course of action was to convey to the bus driver (who spoke absolutely NO english) that we had to pull over and clean up the back of the bus. First he pulled over onto the side of the highway, which was a big help (not), and then I think he got the message (with the aid of descriptive hand gestures) and pulled over at the next rest stop. By then the rest of us were suffocating from the stink and cursing barf boy up and down. One of the RI’s cleaned up the mess and we made him change his shirt (he thought he was ok the way he was but NOOOO he wasn’t), and we all got some fresh air before the remaining 3 1/2 hours of the trip.

The bus dropped us off about 1/4 of a mile from the train station with all our gear (there were about 50 of us) and we took the train into the first town. It is now around 7:30, but we can’t check into the hostel until 10. So, backpacks and all, students went down to the marina to go swimming at the beach or climbing on the rocks. I personally was content taking pictures of the scenery. I can see why everyone likes this place so much.After finally checking into the hostel, we hike up to the top of the town to get passes for the Via dell’Amore. Took our time walking throught the first city, and climbed out onto a rock by the seashore to take pictures and chill.In the second town, Manarola, we found some more CIMBA students already swimming in the marina around this huge rock, and jumping off the rock into the pool. Jess, Danyelle, and I quickly joined them (Kate and Denise didn’t want to get wet). The water was so nice, and so salty that it was easy to just float on your back. Then, with some egging on from the other students, a few of us climbed up to the very top of the rock, about 20-25 feet up, and jumped down into the water. I landed on my butt and smacked my legs into the water. I think I took off a good two layers of skin, and the backs of my legs were red and stinging. Did this stop me from trying again? Nope. I climbed up to the top again, aiming to land feet first this time, but I ended up doing the same thing again: butt first. I had some pretty nasty bruises for about a week after this trip, but it was so worth it . After this, unfortunately, I got a charlie horse while swimming which made my leg sore and between this and my knee that I twisted climbing down from Mt. Grappa it was rather difficult to walk. Lucky for me, to get to the next town (Corniglia) we had to climb 386 stairs! The only way I was going to make it to the top was either one stair at a time or to pick my knees all the way up before taking a step. It took me forever, but we finally made it to Corniglia.By now it was getting late and we wanted to get back and shower before dinner because we were still salty from swimming in the sea. We had two options for getting back to Riomaggiore: 1) walk, but I didn’t think I would make it; or 2) take the train that runs through all 5 towns. We walked back down all 382 stairs to the train station just as a train bound for Riomaggiore was leaving. Not really thinking anything of it, we got tickets for the next train. The time was 4:15. The next train wasn’t leaving until 5:41. We waited in the train station for a good hour and a half, napping on the benches (and for some people on the platform) until they changed the track at the last minute and we had to run through the underground passage to get on the train before the hundred other people who had showed up over the hour and a half we were waiting.

Dinner that night was fantastic, we went to a little restaurant on the water. The food was excellent. The wine steward, this little old Italian man, stopped by our table a few times to talk to us in Italian. He was too funny. He right away picked me out as Italian, and tried to guess where my friends were from (he guessed Swedish for my friends Jess and Denise because of their light hair and blue eyes, and Italian again for my roommate Kate, who is mostly Spanish)

After Dinner we walked around the town a bit, some of the locals were putting on some kind of concert in a piazza which inspired Jess and Danyelle to dance.The next morning we checked out and stowed our luggage before taking the ferry to town #4, Vernazza. The ferry ride was so beautiful, we got to see the towns from a different perspective than the previous day. The ferry was full of cruise ship passengers on guided tours, and their tour guide was speaking over the loudspeaker. When she asked “can you hear me?” over the intercom, the six of us LIFEers shouted back “YES!” without thinking, causing everyone on the top deck to turn around and laugh.

"Why am I always in the back?"-- Denise

Walked around for a bit in Vernazza, then took the train back again to Riomaggiore to pick up our stuff so we could catch the train back to La Spezia. Got back a little early, so we sat in a little piazza that had a checkerboard pattern in the middle to wait for the bus. Took a seat on one of the benches, then couldn’t figure out why Jess asked me if I felt lopsided. Heres why:

The bench is quite clearly higher at one end than the other

Got back to campus without incident. Fantastic weekend!

Coming soon: Munich and Oktoberfest!

Two weekends ago we took our first weekend trip- to Interlaken, Switzerland. Immediately following the Da Vinci Challenge, 40 students had about 45 minutes to shower, change, and hop on the bus for a seven hour ride across the border into the Swiss Alps. As my friend Jake said the bus driver “drove the bus like it was a sports car” and boy was he good. When we got up into the mountains all the roads were narrow switchbacks with sheer rock faces on one side and straight drops on the other. On some of the turns I was sure that the bus was going to graze the side of the mountain, but miraculously we arrived in Interlaken without so much as a scratch on a side mirror. We checked in to our hostel at almost 2 am and split into 5 8-person rooms. Some students were ready to go down to the disco until it closed at 2, but our room picked our beds and just crashed. There was some commotion over a few unwelcome roommates of the insect variety (the kind they have at Roxie’s Deli) so some people had a bit of trouble sleeping, and Kate (my roommate from school) slept with her shoes on!

Danyelle (top) and Denise (sleeping) in our room at the hostel

We had made an agreement to wake up by 9 (canyoning wasn’t until 1:30) yet at 8:00 everyone was up and about, including me surprisingly enough. Our reservation included vouchers for breakfast where we had the choice of muesli (so good) or bread and jam, powdered instant coffee. hot chocolate, or Lipton’s tea. The coffee wasn’t that bad but it was nice to have a good cup of tea! After breakfast we went exploring the town. All of the buildings had that swiss chalet look, it was so cute!

Besties

We walked to the downtown area and stopped at McDonalds, of all places, for lunch. This was no ordinary McDonalds, however. It had a very chic feel, and had a brown and gray theme to it.

The next stop was my favorite- a Swiss chocolate shop! I couldv’e spent all day in there, but I settled for a few amazing truffles and some chocolate bars (I still have them in my room). Those truffles were so pretty I almost didn’t want to eat them. Almost.

The best stuff on earth

After the chocolate shop we headed back to the hostel to change before getting picked up by a 10 seater van for canyoning. Our driver/canyoning guide was this really cool Scottish guy named Ian (he had the best accent-not to mention the best job ever). They outfitted us with wet suits, neoprene jackets, life jackets, harnesses, and these dee-dee-dee bright yellow helmets that each had a different word written across the front. I was “Rat”.

The whole gang before going into the canyon

Canyoning was SO much fun. We followed the canyon all the way back to where the van was parked- it took us ten minutes to walk along the ridge to the starting point and over an hour to get back along the canyon. The guides (Scottish Guy Ian and another French guy whose name escapes me) had us jumping off of waterfalls, sliding down rocks, and even rappelling down the side of a cliff at one point.

Scaling a cliff- no the picture is not sideways!

On the last jump Scottish Dude Ian had me do a flip off of the waterfall. It was so cool! The rest of the group told me my flip was the best At least I didn’t hit my head like my friend Denise (She’s fine, by the way–her helmet just grazed the rock). It was over way too quickly in my opinion, but it was such a different experience and so much fun!

They drove us back to the “tent city” where we started, and we redeemed our drink vouchers while we waited for our pictures and chatted with the canyoning guides. While we were there they showed all the pictures from the trip on these screens, and some of them are just priceless. For example, there are a few of me looking just terrified!

That night we were out on the town again, and stopped for dinner in this Thai food place that was actually pretty good. I won’t go into detail, but it was a really fun night at the discotheque!

The next day was supposed to be for shopping, but due to bad planning and all the shops being closed on Sundays it turned into another jaunt around the town. We were going to try to find one of the two lakes around the city, but it was a bit farther than we had anticipated, and we ended up turning back after an hour had passed and we hadn’t found it. We did see a lot of wildlife, however. There was one Bed and Breakfast that had two goats out in the front yard, Julie and Minko.

Minko!

There were also a bunch of sheep in someone else’s yard. And just about everyone in Interlaken owns a dog.

Oh, and my roommate has decided that she wants to be Heidi for Halloween after seeing a postcard with little Swiss children on it, lol!

Here are my pictures from Interlaken, the canyoning photos are all the way at the end: Interlaken

Blow it up, of course!

Our task was to identify the potential problems associated with blowing a dead whale to smithereens. As if those are not apparently obvious.

Apparently the government of Florence, Oregon thought that the whale would vaporize– no lie, vaporize– and then the seagulls would eat whatever was left over. They did not anticipate pieces of smelly dead whale showering down on everything and everyone in a half-mile radius, or a huge piece of blubber smashing in the roof of a car a quarter of a mile away. Even after all that, there was still a huge piece of whale that remained unexploded. What a waste. They’ll just have to blow the rest of it up now, right?

Tomorrow we have the Da Vinci Challenge, aka the low ropes course, which is going to be so much fun! Pray for sun so we can have it outdoors– its been raining on and off all week. I’ll probably post again on Monday because right after the Da Vinci Challenge we hop on the bus for Interlaken, Swizerland, the extreme sports capital of the world! Many of us want to do canyoning, which involves hiking down streams and jumping off waterfalls. Sort of like the red-rock slides in Sedona. This is what it’s like:

Canyoning

We left campus at 8 in the morning and headed to Crespano, the next town over, where we stoppedfor breakfast and picked up a bottle of prosecco for the top. The base of the mountain was another 45 minutes from Crespano, straight uphill, so by the time we finally got to the base, we were tired already!

The trail up the mountain itself was a series of steep, narrow switchbacks, and every once in a while you got a glimpse of the surrounding countryside.

The Surrounding Area

It took us 2 1/2 hours, but at the top, we had a lovely lunch of peanut-butter and Nutella sandwiches, pita chips, pringles, and prosecco. We took a bunch of pictures too. The view was fantastic!

The top!

The boys decided they wanted to run back down the mountain (NOT advisable) and got to the bottom in 45 minutes. It took us considerably longer since we value our lives and did not want to fall off the side of a cliff or something.

To reward ourselves, we stopped off in Crespano again, this time for some gelato!

I’m still sore!

Here are my pictures from the trip:

Mt Grappa