Lots of walking, and lots of tourists

Today, again, was extremely dull.
Had to wake up early to go on the Intro to Florence field trip. We wandered quite a ways, looking at churches and the places where the city walls used to stand. We had to walk past the Academia twice (where the David currently is) and each time it seemed like the amount of tourists was multiplying. I have got to see the David before I leave Florence, but I refuse to stand in line with a billion tourists for hours upon end to do so. I'm hoping tourist season is ending here soon because it would be a terrible shame not to see the David when I live less than 5 minutes away from where its on display.
Anyways, after the tour we headed back to school and I went to Italian. Then Erin and I went and got our laundry. After that was lunch and my Holocaust history class. After class I went home and studied/watched Greys Anatomy until dinner.
Dinner was weird again tonight. Yesterday we had scrambled eggs and salad, tonight we had hot dogs and salad. I don't like hot dogs. I also don't like their salad. Thank goodness they also give us huge bowls of pasta with every meal.
After dinner I continued studying until we had a late night girl fest with Allie's jar of nutella in Erin and Audrey's room.
We leave tomorrow night for Oktoberfest. I am very glad I am feeling better because this would be a terrible weekend if I wasn't.

Wednesday, September 28th

I'm a terrible student... oh, and a meeting with some Italian.. boys?

Well, today did not go the way I intended.
I woke up feeling not so great, still, but I decided to get ready and try and go to class anyways. I got my teeth brushed, make up on, and dressed when I just couldn't stand it anymore and went back to bed. My plan was to sleep until Italian, walk to the school and go to class, then bail on Intro to Florence and go home early to sleep more. INSTEAD I got woken up at 11AM by the cleaning ladies throwing our door open and barging in to clean. Once they realized I was still home they gave me this weird look and said, "Clean?". Totally out of it and not comprehending anything I replied with (in English.. what was I thinking), "Can you come back later?" Of course they had no idea what I was saying, gave me some more weird looks and said, "No." At that point I was done with the situation so I mumbled something along the lines of, "Okay, fine, whatever" and fell back into bed. Thank goodness they got the hint and turned the lights back off and shut the door.
Needless to say, I didn't make it to Italian. After my run in with the cleaning ladies I realized I was still not feeling well so I stayed in bed. I didn't even try to move until Allie and Gabby came home and told me I needed to come to lunch to eat something.
After lunch I did some homework and took another nap. Woke up in time for dinner. Again, just as at lunch, I  ate like half of the food placed in front of me, and I'm pretty sure the cook kept giving me mean looks because I wasn't eating. Oh well.
After dinner I was told we were going out for gelato and meeting Erin's distant Italian cousin (and his friends). I was feeling a little better at this point and wanted fresh air and gelato, so I decided to go. We were "supposed" to meet them outside the duomo. We were there for like 10 minutes and it was almost to the point where Audrey and I almost left to get gelato ourselves and walk home when Erin finally saw them. Her cousin, Fabio, and his brother and friend showed up. None of them were good looking, and none of them were tall, so after 30 seconds I was no longer interested. Oh and they didn't speak English, except for one of them, so that made it even more fun. We went and got gelato, and at that point I started feeling sick. We tried talking to them but it just kept getting less fun and more awkward. I finally said I was heading home (because I honestly wasn't feeling good) and Audrey came back with me. We discussed how neither of us was having that much fun and it was pointless to go to the bar with them that the rest of the group was heading to.
So I came home, watched some Grey's Anatomy, and fell asleep by midnight.
I want to become friends with Italians... but it would help if I knew more Italian, or they knew some English. Oh and if they were good looking and tall. It may have been me being pessimistic because of being sick, but I kinda feel like I should have just gotten gelato myself and gone home. That sounds much more enjoyable.

Tuesday, September 27th

I have no idea what happened today

Today was pretty boring.

Woke up. Got ready. Went to class. Class was boring. Went home for lunch. Lunch was good. Started feeling a little sick. Went to class. Started feeling really sick. I have absolutely no idea how I made it through an hour and a half long class without puking, or running out. Went home. Slept until dinner. Went to dinner. Didn't eat much. Fell asleep again.

Ya, today was pretty boring.

Monday, September 26th

Naked people, Ferrari's, and a few glasses of champagne

Seeing as how this weekend was just too great, I've decided I'm going to do one massive post for Thursday-Sunday rather than write one for each day. I'm tired, so I hope this works.

THURSDAY
Went to class from 8:30-11:40. It was fantastic. Didn't do much of anything.
After lunch we went walking around the city to pass time until we left for Nice. I should have been packing at this time, but instead I fell asleep after lunch right up until everyone decided we were going to go for a walk. It was super hot and since we were walking anyways we decided to head across the Ponte Vecchio for some $1 gelato. We were basically at the bridge when some people decided they didn't want to go any farther and instead wanted to just grab some gelato at a place right next to us. Trusting that they read the sign correctly, we all got our normal small cup of gelato. Being told that it was £2.50, Erin and I walk up to pay for it. Both of our cups were sitting next to one another, so when the woman said $6 Erin and I quickly corrected her saying we weren't paying together. She gave us this look, and then repeated $6. Somehow, the girls that read the sign didn't read well enough and we payed WAY too much for gelato. From now on, no matter how lazy or tired any one of us is, we are walking across the bridge for gelato. The only part that made it even a little bit better was that they had massively over filled our cups. While it was in no way worth as much as we payed for, at least it wasn't some wimpy little serving.
After our fiasco with the gelateria we walked back. It was almost 5:30 and we were leaving at 6 to go to the train station. I quickly threw some clothes and swimsuits into my backpack and off we went.
We easily found the bus, and began the long 4 hour drive to Nice, we arrived sometime after midnight.

FRIDAY
We woke up around 9 and walked down the street towards the beach in search of some breakfast. Since we had driven into the city when it was dark, we couldn't stop looking around at how gorgeous Nice was. After we had eaten, we walked back towards the hotel to meet the group to go to Monaco for the day.
The Yacht Show was going on this weekend, so when we got to Monaco not only did we have an absolutely gorgeous day with an amazing view, we also got to admire the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal yachts sitting in the harbor. We went on a relaxed tour of the the smallest country in the world. Saw the palace, saw Grace Kelly's grave, saw the Ferrari garage (home to one Ferrari Enzo, only 349 were made), went to Casino de Monte Carlo (tried to go into the slot room but it was closed for the day. No gambling for us.), and walked almost everywhere you can in the country. After getting a small lunch, we decided to head back to Nice to spend what little sunlight as left at the beach.
The majority of beaches that make up the French Riviera are all big, rocky ones. Including the one in Nice. It didn't really bother us since we spent most of the time in the water. As you all know, I am quite a big fan of water, so I am very excited to say I got to swim in the Mediterranean! It wasn't as warm as I had imagined it to be, but still very clear and clean. I could have stayed in that water for hours if it hadn't turned nighttime.
The entire French Riviera is a very expensive area. The travel agency we booked the trip through hosted a champagne party for all of us because the clubs and bars were just so expensive. We had a good night with everyone, and did walk down to one of the bars. They had a good local band playing American songs so we hung out there awhile. It was a good night.
Oh. I had the best seafood risotto of my life for dinner. Yes mom, I ate seafood risotto and liked it. It even had the mini squids in it, and I ate every one.

SATURDAY
Again, we woke up and went in search of breakfast. We then met up with the group again, this time to go on a day trip to Cannes. It just so happens that Cannes is one of the only sandy beaches in the French Riviera. It was a bit farther train ride, but totally worth it. The day didn't turn out to be nearly as nice as Friday had been, yet we tried not to let that hinder our day, so we still swam and layed out on the beach for the majority of the day. We hadn't seen any naked people on the beach in Nice, and in all honesty there weren't many in Cannes, however there was a group of older people who had no problem changing out of their swimsuits right there on the beach. And taking their sweet time putting clothes back on. Not exactly what I needed to see.
Around 6 we decided to head back to Nice. After riding the train already 3 times we thought we had the process down. We lucked out and got to the platform right as the train was arriving. Not paying attention we got onto the first car we came too. As we were walking around, we realized it was a 1st class car. There wasn't enough time to get off and run down the train so we decided to wait it out and change at the next stop. When the train got to the next stop, we got off and run down the train. Turns out the conductor got on the 1st class train to check tickets right as we were getting off. Talk about lucky. We found the 2nd class cars and Erin, Connor and I got on. The entry way was super packed to everyone decieded to run down to teh next car. Connor and Erin weren't as far in as I was and were able to get off. I on the other hand couldn't get the people between me and the door to move so I was stuck. We had made plans to get off at some stop to check out the shopping, but seeing as how all I had on me was my train ticket (Allie had my backpack) and had no idea what the shopping stop was, I decided it would just be smarter to take the train all the way back to Nice. Only like two minutes after the train started again, Conner shows up. I guess we had already missed the stop for shopping so we all headed back to Nice.
Erin and Conner went out for a date night, so the rest of us girls found the "best Italian restaurant in France" for dinner. We had been told by numerous people that this place did Italian food better than the Italians. They were right. Rachel and I split seafood linguine and a salad nicoise. We could have ordered just one and been full. Even so, at the end of the meal none of our plates had a speck of food on them. It was all delicious. We also talked to the people sitting next to us. The restaurant was very crowded outside, so when the people next to us sat down and started speaking English, we had to talk to them. They were a young couple from Canada there on vacation. They were really nice. Turns out they were heading to Monaco that night, and are coming to Florence in a few days. They shared some of their travel experiences with us and we told them what we know about Florence (they've never been).
We again had a champagne party. It was a night of 10 fingers, truth or dare, and lots of laughs.

SUNDAY
Again, we woke up and dragged ourselves down to the beach for breakfast. On Saturdays and Sundays there is this massive outdoor market down the center of the main road by the beach, so after breakfast we decided to check it out. Somewhere during the first 5 minutes, Allie and I got separated from everyone else. We kept looking around and knew we would wander into the others sooner or later. Conner and Erin found us not too long after, but we could find the other three girls for the life of us. After looking for a bit we gave up and assumed they were all together (we would find out later they were). We went up and down the market a few times, and I found this local artist who had some amazing watercolor paintings. I had no idea how I would get it back to Florence untouched, lucky me he has a website that I can order from.
We wandered around some more and came across this kids festival where there were this teenage kids LAIR-ing. That was entertaining. From there we went back onto the boardwalk and sat on the bulk head awhile just looking out on the Mediterannean and people watching.
After a few more hours we decided to take our time walking back up the pedestrian street. Its full of shopping and food, and we went into every store. If only we had money. Conner did find a shirt, he's such a trooper. He went into every store with us and never complained once, so Erin bought him a shirt. After making a quick stop for a hamburger, the only stop Conner actually asked to do, we headed back to the hotel.
We left Nice around 3:30 and stopped in Eze for about an hour. We climbed up this palace/tower/monument thing and had an amazing view. Apparently Bon Jovi has one of the houses this palace things looks out onto; the tour guide was telling us every once in awhile you can see him having coffee out on the terrace. We weren't so lucky.
The traffic coming home was awful. It took us another 5 hours to get home. It didn't help that I was not feeling good and thought I was going to be car sick the entire way. We got back to Florence around 11PM and didn't fall asleep until around 1:30AM due to having to take a shower and unpack, not to mention the little bit of homework that I forgot to do before I left.

It was a fantastic weekend. Traveling with some of the best people, in one of the most beautiful places.
The only thing about France that we discovered is that we get a lot more cat-calling there than in Italy. At one point Allie, Rachel and I were walking home and a guy at one of the cafe's said as we were walking by, "You speak English? Sex. (when we didn't answer, and looked confused) Guess not."
Oh those French men. I'm glad to be back in Italy where I semi blend in.

Thursday, September 22nd - Sunday, September 25th

Finally, a down night

My lovely morning began with an exciting tour of the Archaeological Museum with Intro to Florence.
It was neither lovely, nor exciting. The only cool part was that we got to see the tunnel that was built back in the 1600's for the Princess Maria Maddalena. She was a part of the Medici family and was handicapped. A tunnel was built connecting the palace to the church so that she could attend church without going outside or being seen. This is usually closed to the public, but because we went with the school we were able to go through the tunnel and see her sitting room complete with the original furniture that looks out into the church. It was quite impressive.
As long as I get to see things like that, I guess I'll stay in the class.

The rest of the day was boring, just class and homework. I started getting a runny nose in the afternoon, and by 8PM was absolutely miserable. I would have just gone to bed then but I had a skype date with Andrea and I didn't want to bail on that.
I finally crashed around 11:30PM. I didn't even wake up at midnight when Allie got home from the soccer game. I sure hope this cold medicine works wonders because we leave for the French Riveria tomorrow and there is no way I am going to be sick on vacation.

Wednesday, September 21st

Happy Birthday Allie! 20 at last

My lovely friend Allie FINALLY turned 20 today. About time. It was hard to concentrate during classes knowing tonight was going to be a celebration.
Before I get to the night's festivities, I should mention- I went to Intro to Florence today. Go me.
That class is going to be terrible. If it wasn't for the field trips every Wednesday I would drop it here and now. Its the biggest class in Florence, yet she only talks to the first 2 rows. So the rest of us in the back just sit, talk, and cruise Facebook since she hands us her powerpoints and just reads off the projector. I love old ladies who still teach, they make learning SO fun. Not.
When class finally finished, we had lunch and spent the rest of the day doing homework and applying to internships so that after dinner we could go out and have some birthday fun.
All afternoon the only thing we spoke of was wanting crepes. We had made the birthday plans to be: take Allie to $1 gelato and then go to the Shot Bar. However, we haven't had crepes since Berlin and it has been sounding more and more delicious every day.
After dinner, we met the guys and walked to the Ponte Vecchio to get some delicious gelato. While we were there Gemo bought the cheesecake Allie has been eyeing for like a week. Hello bar snack. As we were walking back, we kept checking the cafes in hopes of finding one that also sold crepes. Right as our hopes began to waver, Erin spotted a sign inside of a gelato place advertising hot nutella crepes. We all split two, and it was even more delicious than the ones we had in Germany. Because we had taken so long to get to gelato, and the detour to get crepes, we were almost an hour late getting to the bar (where we had people waiting for us).
As we were passing the duomo, almost to the bar, we see Felicia running towards us from up the street. When she got to us we realized she was crying, and when we looked up Fallon was also running to us, tears streaming down her face. Between their shaken cries we deciphered that they had been walking back from the Ponte Vecchio when two guys started following them. They even followed them into a gelato place. Good for the girls though for running in the direction of the duomo. Even at night it is the most populated area of the city. I wonder what would have happened had we not shown up...
Erin, Audrey and Gabby took them home. They live on Cavour so it was literally a 2 minute walk. Allie, Gemo, Conner and I went to rest of the way to the bar, a solid 2 blocks from where we were. When we showed up everyone else was already there. And so the birthday celebration began. If gelato and crepes weren't enough sugar for one night, our group of 20 people split the cheesecake. Lesson learned: when an Italian cafe/gelateria advertises cheesecake, it is not what we Americans think of as cheesecake. It was still really good, but just not what we expected.
The other girls showed up 10 minutes later, and the party finally began. Erin and I bailed around midnight, only because we have to wake up tomorrow for an 8:30AM museum tour.
Happy Birthday Allie!

Tuesday, September 20th

And then there was school...

Well, the time has come. The time to stop having fun and to get down to business. Joy.
Today was the beginning of the first week of classes. My Monday's look like they are going to be absolutely enthralling, beginning with Finance at 8:30AM and not ending until Economics gets out at 6:30PM. All in all, classes weren't too terrible.
Finance- I will fall asleep in this class. It is the most boring class, and being at 8:30AM does not help. She prints out her powerpoint for us, and then basically reads off of the projector. If attendance wasn't mandatory I doubt I would be going.
Italian- Obviously this class is going to be useful. And the professor seems nice enough. We'll see if I have an easier time with Italian than I had with French.
Intro to Florence- Okay, funny story. I KNEW I had this class today. I complained all last night, and this morning, for the mere fact that I have 5 classes today. However, I was a little mixed up on the exact time of this class. After Italian got out at 11:40, I went home. It's what I did on Thursday so I assumed its what I did today as well. It wasn't until I was sitting on my bed at 12:15 going over the rest of the day that I realized I only had 2 classes after lunch, not 3. At least Allie has this class later and got me the syllabus. What a great friend.
Holocaust History- Oh my gosh. The professor seems super nice, but my god is she boring. All she did today was put her syllabus in powerpoint format and then read over it. Every. Single. Word. I do hope once the class gets going, it gets better, because I was really looking forward to this class.
Global Economics- If this class wasn't 3 hours long, I could see me liking it. But it is 3 hours and so this seems like its going to be the longest night of my semester. The professor is bat shit crazy and enjoys repeating himself 7 times, thank goodness Allie, Gemo and Jaclyn are also in this class or I would go insane.

After class finally finished, I spent the rest of the night doing homework and crashing early. Trying to juggle this and travelling/having fun is going to be a challenge. I'm pretty sure I'm up for it.

Monday, September 19th

Marching bands and American breakfast

We discovered our new favorite spot in Florence this morning. Or more so, I did. Either way... we all woke up too late for breakfast so at 12 we decided we wanted pancakes and we were going to get them. There is this American diner past the doumo that caters to the tourists and American students. They serve breakfast all day, and have hamburgers, fries, etc. It was the most delicious meal I have eaten in the past 3 weeks.
On our way home we heard music coming from somewhere, and wandered around until we found this full marching band playing while walking down the street. Because we had nothing else better to do, we followed them. This was a good idea until we realized we had absolutely no idea where we were. We spent at least a half hour wandering in different directions until we ran into Via Cavour. Good thing none of us had plans right after brunch.
The rest of the day was spent in the pensione. It was raining, lightly, outside, and we all had homework so we hung out in the study room off the lobby. I even took a small nap. It was quite the lovely Sunday.
Around 7PM, after we finished the Bachelor Pad, we went in search of dinner. We got ourselves lost this time too. But we came across this cute cafe and had some good gnocchi and pizza. Since we haven't had gelato in two days we went in search of that afterwards. It being Sunday night, a lot of the usual places were closed. We walked up Cavour and stopped at the first place we found open. We knew we were going to pay more since this place was so close to the doumo, but it was raining and we wanted to head home. Of course, we were ripped off. Mental note: don't get gelato anywhere near the doumo.
The rest of the night is being spent in our room. I just applied for a Boeing summer internship and the leadership program in Zambia this summer. Tomorrow starts the first full week of class. Play time is over; the last three weeks have been fun but its time to get down to business.

Sunday, September 18th

You ask, you ask

Well, it started out like any normal Saturday. I missed breakfast because I woke up and took a shower instead of going downstairs. Who only has breakfast open until 9:30AM? Really? It didn't matter because Allie brought me yogurt and an apple.
Erin, Allie and I decided to go get our laundry, and thank goodness he didn't charge extra for keeping them an extra day. We will be giving him all of our laundry from now on; they smell so clean!
When we got back we got ahold of Connor and Gunnar and made plans to go to the market for lunch and some shopping around. They said they'd be here in a half hour. They lied. We finally left an hour later and went to the fresh market. We got apples, peaches, grapes, carrots and cantaloupe. This place is amazing. They have every fruit and vegetable imaginable, and its picked fresh daily. And super, super cheap. Off the side of the produce is what we have dubbed Italy's Pike Place Market. We got a few small baguette's and some cheese and went out to the park to have our lunch. Somehow we talked the boys into going shopping for the rest of the afternoon. We went through all the street vendors and made our way past the doumo to some swimsuit stores and H&M. They bailed on us at H&M, but they were troopers so we let them go. We made one last stop at another swim suit store and it was kind of set up like Victoria's Secret. All they had out were models of the swimsuits they have, and then below that were drawers were all the sizes were. While Allie and Erin were looking through the models, I got curious as to what was in the drawers, and so I opened one and looked in then closed it. This happened in a manner of 10 seconds. The salesgirl walked away from Erin and Allie to come to me and say 'you ask, you ask' and pointing at the drawer. I'm not entirely sure how much English she knew, but my 'I'm sorry, I was just looking' got her to walk away. I guess that's my 'rude American' act of the day. That's the only thing I'm finding annoying here. They are really stuck up and finicky about stupid things. And, while I'm on my little rant, why is nothing free? Not water, not bread, not refill's (don't even get me started on the fact that they don't have ice)... In America if a restaurant (this goes for McDonalds here too!) doesn't do free water, refills, or bread we get mad and leave. Or complain. Here it's the norm. You have to pay for everything. And they're cover charge is also stupid. We just began realizing that anytime we sit down at a place that also does stuff to-go we are getting charge like $1.50 more just because we're eating there. Ridiculous Italians.
Okay, sorry, I'm done.
We walked home and chilled for an hour or two until we met up with the group to go out to dinner. We wanted to stay close to the pensionne so we decided to go to this place we have walked past everyday that looked good, and moderately priced. It was good, but not moderately priced. Half of the group left, the other half of us decided to pair up and split things. But we aren't going back there again. The same liter bottle of water I got last night for $2.50 was $5 here. Not happening.
And this is when the night began to take a turn. We all came back to the pensionne, and since most people had bought wine or what not, we decided it would be cheaper to drink our stuff then pay for overpriced drinks at a bar or club. Other than our room getting extremely hot, it was fine. Billy said he had heard of a good bar, so we let him lead. It was a nice bar, too nice. It wasn't a young kids place, so after they had already put together tables and everything, we left. They were expensive and not exactly the place we wanted to be. So we decided to head back to the Fish Pub we were at Thursday night.
There was a good number of people there when we showed up. Somehow Allie, Mariah, all the guys, and I were the only ones not a little tipsy at this point. When we walked in this low 20's, high 30's guy comes up to us wearing this ridiculous hat. He was already drunk and loud and that didn't seem to help our girls we were close to being there. For the next 15 minutes all they did was scream America. It went downhill from there fast. We decided we needed to either take them out of there and go home, or find a club. We had made plans to go to the secret bakery at 1AM but Allie had left the directions in our room, so instead Allie, Billy and I left to go back to Bonifacio and left Mariah and the rest of the boys to watch the girls and to bring them back in an hour.
The rest of the night was not what we intended. We never made it to the secret bakery. Allie and Billy helped our neighbors with a few things, and when Gabby got back it was obvious everyone had gone home and going back out was out of the question.
At least the secret bakery is every night, not just weekends. And tomorrow is Sunday, which means doing nothing and sleeping in. Good night.

Saturday, September 17th

Ponte Vecchio and gelato

The nice thing about Florence is, we don't have school on Fridays. We still had to get up though because there was orientation at 9:30AM. We had a map and an address, yet our group from Hotel Bonifacio was still the last group to arrive.
Our morning was pointless. We had to listen to, not even all, the professors talk about their classes. Like in depth. It took almost 3 hours and the only reason they didn't continue with the rest of the introductions was because they had only booked the room until 12 so we had to leave. Praise the lord.
Once we got out of there, our lovely group decided to wander back to the place us girls had limoncello the previous night, to get some lunch. Allie's boyfriend Alam wasn't there (bummer), but lunch was good. We made plans with the boys to meet us in front of our pensionne at 6PM because they wanted us to show them were the laundry place is. So from around 12:30PM until close to 6 we wandered around and explored Florence. Around 5PM we realized we were super close to the laundry place and considered just getting our laundry then. But we remembered we had promised the boys we would take them there, so instead we walked home. As we were walking up to our building Connor came out of nowhere. He proceeded to tell us that Gunnar and him had already taken their laundry to the place so we didn't have to show them anymore. We about strangled him right then and there. At that point it was 6PM and we had already walked into town and back 3 times so we decided to just get our laundry tomorrow.
We got down to the Ponte Vecchio right as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful view. There was a ton of tourists around, but we managed to get a pretty cool picture on the bridge. Our group of 16 decided to head to the other side of the river, towards the local side. We knew we were going to have a hard time finding a place that would let all of us in. We wandered awhile and asked a few places if they could hold us, but got turned down each time. It was already dark by the time we found this other place. It looked like a good size, but again we got told no. As we were standing in the middle of the street deciding how we were going to split when a guy from the restaurant came out and told us if we could eat in an hour (we had to be out at 9 because the tables were reserved for then) we could eat there. We got split into 3 different groups, but hey we were getting dinner. I ended up with Connor, Billy, Nathan and Pat. Connor spent the first five minutes apologizing about the laundry mix up, after that dinner was good. I had spaghetti al pesto and it was delicious. It was the only thing on the menu that I knew what it was. The entire menu was in Italian, thankfully our waiter knew some English so he told us what some of the words were. Still, I stuck with the spaghetti. Billy got tortellini with rabbit sauce and surprisingly, it was amazing. We all decided we have to go back, in smaller groups of course, because it was amazing food for a good price. As we walked around, we came to realize everything is cheaper on the local side of the river. Note taken.
Gemo had heard of this $1 gelato spot up a few blocks, and even though we had just had dinner, of course we jumped on that. This place had at least 20 flavors, and for $1 they gave you a ton. We sat on the Ponte Vecchio, eating our gelato, feeling Italian. We were in the heart of the city having a blast.
Even though it was only 10PM, Erin, Allie, Connor, Gunnar and I decided we wanted to head back and watch a movie. Last night was just too much and we needed a night in. So we left everyone else and came back to Bonifacio to watch Just Friends. For the first time we managed to find our way home without a map. We are becoming locals. Slowly. Our clothes and speech make us stand out, but at least we aren't carrying a map anymore.

Friday, September 16th

Welcome to Florence

The first day of school, oh how lovely it is. Especially when you’re wearing clothes you’ve been wearing for the past 10 days.

I got up and had breakfast with Carl and Joe before we walked to school for our 8:30AM classes. Carl and I had finance, and to my surprise there are actually quite a few people I’m friends with in it. I thought everyone else was in the later one, so I was pleasantly surprised. Finance sounds like it’s not going to be too terrible. Professor Screti is nice so far, and finance in general doesn’t appear to be too difficult. Ask me in a month if I’ve changed my mind.

Between finance and Italian I have an hour break. I decided to hit up the library and get the rest of my books. I didn’t think I was that late, but when I got there at 9:40 the librarian had already run out of Italian 101 books. Oh well. After that I went to the computer lab and enjoyed the nice air conditioning for a bit.

I really have no one in my Italian class. There’s only like 15 of us in the class, and Professor Baltrini is also very nice, so I don’t think it will be terrible. I just wish I had a few people I know in it. I guess I’ll have to make friends, yay.

After Italian got out I was done with classes. We went back to the pensionne for lunch and then ran back to the school an hour later to go to our resident permit meeting. That was crazy. We all had to get our passports copied because the study abroad office in Spokane forgot to send them over. Then we crammed 75 of us into this very hot room at the top of the school to fill out 6 pages of paperwork. Exactly what I wanted to do during the hottest part of the day. Audrey and I were in the first group, so we hung out in the library until the other girls were finished with there’s. I had my interview with the librarian for the library assistant job during this time, and I think it went well. She is only hiring 3 people so my chances are slim, but keep your fingers crossed.

We had made plans with the boys to go to dinner at 8PM. So when it came to be 8PM and none of them had showed up, we decided to walk to Connor’s pensionne to figure out what the plan was. When we got there we found out they had already gone to dinner. Boys. We told them we were going to dinner and if they wanted to come out with us after, they had to find us. Everyone wanted pizza, so we began walking to the doumo. We came across this little place and got 4 pizzas to split. As we were sitting in the square/park eating, the boys showed up. We aren’t entirely sure how they found us, but at least they came.  Of we went in search of a bar, but in Italy a lot of the cafés are called bars so we kept thinking we had found one when it was actually just a sandwich shop. Eventually we came across this restaurant that looked like it had alcohol, so us girls decided to stay there and have a shot of limoncella while the boys went in search of a real bar. It was my first and last time having limoncella. It is an Italian natural lemon liquor and you have to sip it. It is the strongest tasting lemon stuff I’ve ever had. The boys actually listened, and came back. However, they came back early because they couldn’t find a place.  We stayed at the restaurant awhile longer though just because of our waiter. His name was Alam and he is IN LOVE with Allie. We’re pretty sure he was either drunk or on acid, but he made us laugh the entire time that’s for sure. Connor, Gunnar and Gemo got his email address and told him that we would come back tomorrow night with Allie for dinner. He got super excited. It was creepy. Oh, and the table across from us was full of 12 year old Italian boys who kept staring and trying to talk to us. Its nice Erin speaks some Italian, she told them we were too old for them. If only all of you could have seen their faces.

 After we left the restaurant, much to Alam’s dismay, we decided it was just going to be one of those nights and it would be smart to just go home. On our way this guy came up to us and said something. Audrey, hearing he had a British accent, started talking back to him (with her fake English accent). I’m not entirely sure of the thought process, but he told someone there was a bar up the street that has free shots. As we were following this guy, Connor came up to Erin and I and made sure that we knew not to ever do this if we weren’t with all of the guys. Uhh, well duh. We aren’t that dumb. We showed up at this bar, and we instantly realized it was a black bar. Or at least being run by only black people. And we were the only ones there. Apparently only the first shot is free, but they brought it to our table. That sketched us out a bit since we hadn’t seen it made or anything, so no one drank it. After about ten minutes other students started pouring in, and we saw that they were all being handed the same shot we had been given, at the bar. So at that point we made decided it was probably safe and we were just making it way more sketch than it was. After that, the night was a blast. Somehow I came out of the night only paying for one shot… thanks Gemo. We probably would have stayed out later but we had orientation the next morning and thought it best to head home around midnight. The boys walked us back and we walked upstairs and crashed. An excellent first night out in Italy.

Let me rephrase that: an excellent first day in Italy.

Thursday, September 15th

Finally: Florence, Italy

What an uneventful day. We left Bad Kohlgrub around 8:30AM for our long and boring drive to Italy.

Basically, this is how today went:

                8:30AM-11:45AM: Driving/sleeping/talking/listening to music

                11:45AM-12:20PM: Stop to get food and walk around. Eat sandwich and frozen mocha

                12:20PM-3:30PM: Driving/sleeping/talking/listening to music

                3:30PM-3:45PM: Stop and walk around

                3:45PM-5:30PM: Driving/talking/getting excited

                5:30PM: Arrive outside of Gonzaga in Florence campus

After that Erin, Gabby, Allie, Audrey, myself, and a few other girls are handed a map and told to go find our new home- Hotel Bonifacio. We, surprisingly, managed to navigate our way through the streets of Florence without any hiccups in direction. However, we would have walked right past it if it wasn’t for Carl hanging out of his window waving at us.

Now, there are three of us in one room. At Gonzaga, this usually means a good sized room with 3 of everything. This is apparently not what the Italians think. Our room is quite big, but the only 3 of anything is the beds. We have one closet and one desk. None of us know exactly where we are going to put our clothes when we get our suitcases tomorrow. We’ll figure out, right? We have too?

Dinner was at 7PM so we spent an hour exploring. We found a few bars and café’s right down the street, and a market. We also found a laundry place, but it is so expensive we are hoping the tourist place is better priced. I am so tired of wearing the same dirty clothes every day; it’s gross.

Dinner was good; pasta, broccoli and chicken. The three women who we met tonight seem really nice, so far it seems like this won’t be too bad of a living situation. The only thing is we need to figure out laundry and internet. The internet only works in certain places in the hotel, one of them not being our room.

I wish I had some funny, sassy, or inappropriate few words or sentence to describe today… but as you can see it was pretty boring. Tomorrow starts the first day of classes. I have finance and Italian, and since all of my notebooks and pencils are in my suitcases, it should be a productive morning.

Wednesday, September 14th

A ride on the party bus

Today is our last day in Germany. To be more precise, today is our last day on Opening Tour. It started off quite  eventful; the girls had our room lottery right after breakfast. There are only so many rooms, and 8 of them are singles, so most of us were panicking that somehow we were going to be the ones to get screwed over and end up in a single. Allie, Gabby, and I have been planning on rooming together since last year. Out of all the rooms, there are only 18 triples. We assumed Gabby turned her stuff so early we would be one of the first groups called. Little did we know that the health form counts as part of the packet, making us farther down on the list than we expected. After what seemed like forever, we finally got called. We managed to get the 9th triple and drew Hotel Bonifacio, which just so happens to be the same pensionne that Erin and Audrey are in! By the end of the day we would discover that Carl and his two roommates are also in our pensionne; 8 people down, only 18 more to figure out.
Our days adventure consisted of traveling to Neuschwenstein castle. It's located in Austria and was built only 800 years ago by King Ludwig II. It is the castle that Walt Disney based the Disneyland castle after. It was the absolute best day to go see it. The skies were crystal blue without a cloud in the sky. Our amazing tour guide (which I will get to later) decided not to inform us that we had the option between hiking up to the castle and riding a bus. We hiked, but compared to our previous hikes it was nothing. We went onto Maria's Bridge, the bridge that Ludwig built for his mother to go out onto and look at the castle (since she wasn't allowed any closer to the building). This is the view of the castle that most people are familiar with. We then took a tour of the inside of the castle, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Only half of the castle is finished because King Ludwig was murdered before he could finish it. The rooms that are complete are extremely ornate. It truly is a fantasy castle. After spending a few hours on the mountain, we wen halfway down to get lunch. While we were waiting to order our food, Gonzaga kids kept coming up to us with these cheese balls. They didn't look like much, but someone got us to try a piece and well, lets just say any of our previous inclinations towards cheese balls flew out the window. They were delicious. They were cottage cheese, cheese balls, deep fried with powdered sugar on top. Of course we didn't actually need them, but they were so worth it.
From the castle we traveled to a little town called Garmisch. There isn't much to see, but I guess that's where the Winter Olympics were held in 1936. We only stayed there for about an hour, which seemed ridiculous since it took us an hour and forty five minutes to get there. Oh well. We walked around and looked in all of the cute local shops. We found authentic dirndl that we wanted to get for Oktoberfest (and Spokane) but they were almost 200 euro. We contemplated asking the women that worked at our hotel if they had any old ones they would be willing to give/sell us, but we forgot.
Our short stop gave us just enough time to stretch and walk around before we headed back for dinner, which was uneventful. Being our last day in Bad Kohlgrub, everyone went out. Or so it seemed. The little bar down the street ordered kegs because we had been overrunning the place the previous two nights. They were some of the nicest people we've met. I bailed early to take a shower and go to sleep, but even I didn't get to bed until after midnight. It's going to be an early morning having to wake up at 6AM tomorrow.
Okay, now I can get to the best part of the day- our tour guide. We decided to get back on the orange bus because Shelley and Linda played Sound of Music yesterday for us. It turned out to be the best decision we have made so far. Our tour guide was this guy named Michael (Mee-kel if you want to pronounce it the way he did). He was the most enthusiastic, eccentric, fun, spirited guy we've met on our trip. He made learning the history of the castle and Garmisch so much fun. Unlike other days, most people actually stayed awake while he was talking. This may have something to do with him making sound effects and getting louder and louder as the story went on, but who cares. We began to refer to our bus as the party bus, because he also brought music that would blast and sing along with while sitting in traffic. At one point on our way to Garmisch he turned on Abba and started dancing down the aisle. We also played a quiz show game over facts we had learned throughout the day, and about the 16 states of Germany. You could just tell he loved what he did and his country, and made you feel the same. He is by far our favorite tour guide of the past week and a half.
You go orange Japan tour bus (which was the official tour bus of the Japan Women's Soccer Team). We go hard.

Tuesday, September 13th

An orange bus, the sound of music, and acting like celebrities

Yesterday, the staff told us that today's trip to Austria would be optional. Apparently, it's the last day of some German holiday, and so our 2 hour bus ride would most likely be a 4 hour bus ride. We decided to go anyways because we have all heard such awesome things about Austria and how pretty Salzburg is.
The ride there only took 3 hours, 2 of which I was sleep so I didn't complain. Our guide came with us from Bad Kohlgrub, so the entire way there she was telling us random stories and facts about Germany and Austria. The hour I heard was interesting. We began our tour where they filmed the Do-Re-Me song (where they end, not begin) in Sound of Music. We then passed Mozart's house and the bridge covered in locks that lovers have locked there and thrown the key into the river. Our guide took us through the marketplace and showed us how we could get up to the castle, but other than that it was basically a self-guided tour since she talked all the way there.
When the tour was over, our group of 14 headed back to the marketplace to grab some lunch. 14 is an important number because we needed more than 10 to get a discount on the train ride up the mountain to the castle. The last 5 were the boys, and it was because of them we were getting lunch before. We didn't want them wandering off so we decided we should just eat too. The majority of us got this sausage that came either stuffed with cheese or not, and the choice between spicy or sweet mustard. It tasted good at the time, but on our way home we all started feeling a little sick. Oops. There was also this place selling ginormous pretzels. Some of them were more dessert like, and Erin and I split an apple one. It was gone in 2 minutes. As we were walking to the train that takes you up to the castle, we found out you also have to pay to enter the grounds. We only had an hour and a half before we had to be back at the bus, so we opted to not go. It was disappointing because this castle was built in the second century and looked amazing, but spending 9 euro for only an hour seemed like a waste. So instead we went shopping, and on a photo shoot in the garden area where we began the tour.
Shelley and Linda surprised us on the ride back by showing Sound of Music on the TV screens in the bus. It worked perfectly because the movie ended right as we were pulling up to the hotel. It's funny how you can watch a movie a thousand times and still, every time you watch it, catch some line that you finally get. We noticed they mention Saint Ignatius once as well as talking about some of the things we had learned about on the bus ride to Austria.

Tonight was another low key night. After we got back we hung out in Allie’s room going through pictures from the day. After spending a week constantly surrounded by people, I decided tonight was going to be an alone night. I don’t need a lot, but every once in a while I like to be by myself and quiet. Tomorrow is our last day in Germany; we leave for Italy Wednesday morning. I’m not ready for classes to start yet…

Monday, September 12th

The treasures on top of the mountain

We had mass down in the little town church this morning. It was led by our chaplain and he had a nice eulogy, blending the mass of the Holy Spirit and the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Since today was Sunday, all we had planned was a hike in the nearby Hornle Mountains. From what we had heard, there was going to be an easy, medium and hard option. The easy was rumored to be a gondola ride to the top of the mountain (true). The medium was supposed to be a nice trail hike to the top of the mountain (false). And the hard was supposed to be a normal, off trail hike (also false).

Audrey, Erin, Michelle, Christina, Nina, Jo, and I decided we would adventure on the medium hike. Allie and Gabby went on the hard hike. And we all made fun of Jaclyn and Felicia for going on the easy one. At the beginning, it seemed like our hike was going to be a nice afternoon hike. It was supposed to take an hour and a half to get to the top and that seemed good and fine for all of us. An hour into it we come to a stop at the bottom of this gigantic hill. It was literally almost a 90 degree angle. It took us awhile, but everyone got up it. Then we stopped again, this time on one side of a corner. A few other hikers passed us and this old guy stopped and started talking to us. After he asked us if we wanted to meet him for drinks later, he told us that we were only 15 minutes from the top, and the rest of the way there wasn’t nearly as steep as what we had just gone up. We believed him. We turned around that corner and saw another gigantic hill, that didn’t look like it stopped inclining for a while. I’m pretty sure we complained the entire way up.  When that finally leveled off, we could see the top. It was one more 90 degree angle hill away. At that, about half of the group sat in the grass and refused to go any farther. Our 18 year old guide managed to convince us to climb the rest of the way, and after what seemed like an hour, we were finally at the top of this mountain looking down at the most gorgeous view.

I have never seen a restaurant on top of a mountain, but apparently that’s how they do things here in the Alps. We decided water and ice cream was greatly needed, so we grabbed a booth inside. There were two young gentlemen chilling in lederhosen across the restaurant when we got there. It didn’t take long for them to drag up two chairs and join our group. One was Dominico and he looked like 18, but was apparently 22, and was very friendly. He spent most of the time trying to get Amanda to meet him at a bar later for drinks. He had very, very, very minimal English and obviously we know no German… but somehow we managed to have some fun, interesting conversations- the most English he spoke at one time was to call our group ‘treasures on top of the mountain.’ What a ladies man. As we were getting ready to leave, he kept reminding us to meet him at our hotel bar after dinner. Turns out he and some of his friends did actually show up, but we were all off downtown doing other things so we had no idea. It wasn’t until we got back and found Connor a little tipsy in the lobby that we found out he had met our friends and spent the evening drinking with them since none of us showed up.

Our legs would have killed us if we tried to go back down the mountain, so we decided to take the scenic gondola back to the bottom. Best decision, and 3 euros, we have ever made. The view from the top was amazing, but riding down the mountain was even better. The countryside here is so picturesque, and with the sun out and not a cloud in the sky, it was the most gorgeous day.

We ventured into town when we got back in search of some lunch, and ran into a cute little Italian place. The caprese salad and pizza was delicious. Since it was Sunday not many other places were open, so after exploring a while longer, we headed back up the hill. On the way we were stopped by three little boys herding cattle. The littlest one was in charge of getting the cows out of the pasture, and he had managed to get all of them but one out when we showed up. This one cow was giving him a terrible time, and it at first looked like he had finally gotten the cow out of the enclosure, only for the cow to run into the woods right next to the road. The poor kid started crying and running after the cow¸ but got discouraged pretty quickly. One of his brothers came and found the cow for him, and although we were standing on the side of the road, when the cow came out of the forest it looked like it was going to run us over. Thank god it turned and headed up the hill. We followed the cows, and the boys, all the way up the hill. They were so cute in their little matching outfits we couldn’t help but take a few pictures.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Some of the girls went to the hotel bar and hung out, the rest of us were just too tired. I took a shower and was in bed by 10:30PM. I have no regrets. Tomorrow we may, or may not, go to Austria. It’s optional because the bus ride is 4 hours each way, but we will see in the morning.

Sunday, September 11th 

I'll talk slowly, since I know most of you are hungover

We just can’t seem to get a break when it comes to traveling.

We departed Prague around 8AM this morning for Nuremburg, Germany. Of course, we didn’t actually leave until forty five minutes later because 6 people were missing and no one could find them, but what’s new. Due to the fact that the majority of us only got 3-3 ½ hours of sleep last night, the moment the bus started moving all noise ceased and everyone fell into uncomfortable positions to get a few hours’ sleep.

Nuremburg is most famously known as the site of the trials for the Nazi leaders. But as our tour guide frequently reminded us, there is much more to Nuremburg than that- though we aren’t entirely sure what she was talking about. She was crazy, to put it simply. At first we were all excited because when we met her she was speaking perfect English without any accent. Turns out, she is originally from Wisconsin, so that makes sense. But we quickly learned that that was about all we liked about her. She began the tour by implying that we were all hungover. I’m sorry, but just because we are a group of college students does not mean we are all hungover. We got three hours of sleep and just traveled three hours on a greyhound bus; excuse me if I don’t look my best. The rest of the hour dragged on, with her treating us like we were in elementary school and trying way too hard to get us to like her.

After the tour we had an hour and a half to grab some lunch and explore. Walking around was a lot harder than we expected, because the Red Bull District Ride was in town. It seemed like everyone in the country was there to watch these young kids do terribly dangerous tricks on their bikes. Despite that, we managed to look around and spin the golden ring for good luck. There is this Middle Ages water fountain in the middle of the city that has a gold ring. The story goes that if you spin the ring while making a wish, your wish will come true. Sorry, I can’t tell you what I wished for- or else it won’t come true! Obviously.

The city was packed with people, but our tour guides had decided that they would pick our meeting point and be the ones to tell the buses where to come pick us up. So not only were they basically holding us hostage, they decided to make our lives terrible by picking the middle of the city. At 3:30PM we made our way back to the fountain to meet the rest of the group. We waited a half hour before we found out that the bus drivers refused to drive down into the city to pick us up… which meant that we had to walk all the back up the hill of the castle to where we had gotten of the buses earlier in the day. By this time it was close to 90 degrees and we were all hot, tired and not in a good mood. And just to make it better, when we got on the bus, it was a sauna. We had to wait another twenty minutes to get air conditioning running through the place. We are pretty sure someone was out to get us today with this stupid bus, because on our arrival to Nuremburg it took our driver over forty five minutes to figure out where he was going to drop us off. We went in a lot of circles.

Finally, we were on our way, and again everyone was passed out within five minutes. It wasn’t until the bus driver turned on the lights did we all wake up and realize we were in the middle of nowhere. Literally, Bad Kohlgrub is in the middle of the mountains. It’s gorgeous, but remote. We were an hour late thanks to our super late start, so we didn’t even settle into our rooms before we hit dinner.

This is our last hotel before Florence. Tomorrow, we have the option to go hiking in the Hornle Mountains. It will be nice to get out to fresh, clean air. None of us realized how much of a difference a little law like ‘No Public Smoking’ can make. There better not be any smokers on that mountain tomorrow.

Saturday, September 10th

PRAHA. (AKA) Night of the flying egg.

Being the first, and last, day in Prague, we kept ourselves quite occupied. We started off the day with a 3 hour guided walking tour of Prague. From our bus drive in yesterday we were a tad unimpressed with what we had seen and had high hopes that we just hadn’t seen the beautiful part of the city that we have been hearing about for the past three months.

To start off, let me just say- our tour guide was this very nice, but very inattentive, Czech woman. Right from the beginning she would share with us the history of the castle, or opera house, that we were standing by and then turn around and walk swiftly away. Never once did she turn around to make sure all of us were following her, or god forbid, taking pictures and not paying attention to which direction she was going in. Basically, we got lost a good number of times today. It wasn’t until we realized at least 4 girls were not with us at one point did she stop and let us retrace our steps to find them. Turns out, there were way more than 4 people missing from the group. And while I would assume this would freak her out, it instead made her frustrated and from then on walked even faster. Great logic.

We saw so many tourist groups today, it wasn’t even funny. However, it wasn’t the tourists that caught our attention. First, we saw no less than 4 brides just walking around Old Town Square. We even stopped and took pictures of one couple who were letting doves go. Second, there was a crazy guy with a megaphone yelling up and down the street. We were supposed to be following the guide, but out of nowhere this scruffy looking man comes out of an alley screaming something in Czech that we obviously couldn’t understand. I happened to be walking with Carl and Michelle, and we two girls had no problem putting Carl the closest to the gentleman.

I should note I had my first cone of gelato today. Love at first taste.

As I said last night, if there was only one thing we wanted to do in Prague, it was to go to the 5 story dance club. Before we left for the day, everyone got online and reserved a spot for the pub crawl that was ending at this club. After the tour and lunch, as we were walking towards the place we had to pay for the pub crawl, a few of us decided against doing the pub crawl. So a group of 25-40 Gonzaga students stood around in the middle of this town square talking about who was still doing what, and why people were bailing, and in short, being loud. The main thought process of ours was that it was a $35 thing, and while it included unlimited drinks at all 5 pubs, and covered the fee of the club (plus a free tshirt), it was too much to pay for those of us who was in no way going to drink that much money’s worth of alcohol. So we bailed. We decided it would be a better idea to go out to a bar, have a drink, then go to the club on our own.

Once we finally got back to the hotel, all of us were exhausted. I passed out the minute my head the pillow and probably would have stayed there if it wasn’t for Audrey coming back not 20 minutes after me. Then we both passed out and would have slept through dinner, and most likely the rest of the night, had it not been for Michelle and Christina knocking on our door 2 hours later. While at dinner, Michelle and I decided we both were just to beat from traveling and going out previous nights to go to the club.

There are plenty of places to go in Italy, and missing out on one place wasn't going to be the end of the world. So in less than 6 hours we went from going on a pub crawl (with dance club), to bar and dance club, to just bar. A group of just us girls decided to hit up this bar a local had told us about before half of them went the rest of the way to the dance club. We left the hotel around 10:30 and began the trip that will forever be known as – September 9^th, Night of the flying egg. As we were walking, very confidently, down the streets of Prague to this bar, Michelle and I were running to catch up with some of the girls in the front of the pack when something hit my right foot. We looked down and what was it? An egg. A raw egg. Thankfully it hit at my ankle so it didn't get on me, but had we not been sketched out before that, we really were then. Michelle and I began panicking because we were the only two (at that point) who weren't going on to the club, and after that we didn't feel at all comfortable walking by ourselves back. We finally made it to the bar, and bless them, they let all 15 of us stay. Most of the places we've been in the last week make us split into two groups, or just out right tell us we have to leave, so it was awesome when this small-ish bar pulled tables together for us.

I should now also note I had my first two Jaggerbombs tonight. Go me (and Gabby). She was also a Jaggerbomb virgin, and we downed those like bosses.

We had the best time. Our group of girls is amazing and for what started out as a possibly bad night, turned into the most fun night so far.

Somewhere throughout the night, Michelle and I gained 3 other girls who decided tonight was just not the night to get our groove thing on. We departed ways with the others and had an un-eventful walk back to the hotel. Thank God.

All in all, Prague was alright. Tomorrow we head to Bad Kohlgrub, Germany with a stop in Nuremberg on the way. We’ve heard it’s a very quaint German hillside town, so it was definitely be a change from these big cities we’ve been exploring the past week.

Oh, and just so you all know, I lost my voice yesterday. I talked in a whisper for a better part of today, and we have decided to refer to when I talk as I’m telling secrets. I've gotten some strange looks, and quite a few laughs, but hey what can you do.

Quick story: In the elevator sometime this afternoon, I was talking to Audrey (in my whisper voice) when these 2 older gentleman got on the elevator with us. We assume they were German. After they got on, we continued our conversation, and the first time I said something they kinda chuckled. No big deal. But when we got off they whispered “Bye bye!” and then laughed. We aren’t entirely sure if they were making fun of me, or being nice? I’m just going to go with nice because it makes me feel better.

Friday, September 9th

Dresden: It reminds me of Disney Land

We got off to an early start today. We had to be down to breakfast by 7AM since the bus was leaving at 8AM. It was awful.

Our bus driver was not an old man like the last couple of days, he was young and not too bad looking. Allie and I would comment on this for most of the trip. As we were sitting on the bus waiting for the last bus to arrive, I made the comment to Allie that today would probably be a lame blogging day since all we were doing was driving and driving and driving. Oh, how wrong I was.

Not 30 minutes outside Dresden, we are driving along, minding our own business, when this random van comes out of nowhere and pulls up to the driver’s side of the bus. He honked his horn a few times, and our driver threw open his side window. After a minute of German yelling, our driver began to look panicked and slowed down. He must have gotten ahold of the other buses because we pulled over in a gas station parking lot and he got out. He didn’t speak much English, but a few minutes later when he got on he said to us in very broken English, “Damaged. Not good. Shit.” How wonderful. After just enough time to get all 45 of us on the bus talking loudly about what was going to happen to us, Victoria told us that 15 people were going to have to get on one of the other buses and the rest of us were going to hang out until another bus could come pick us up. So Allie and I waved goodbye to Gabby and Christina and the 13 other people as they, and the two other buses, drove out of sight. It didn’t take long for the new bus and our tour guide to show up, and we were off again.

Today’s tour guide was this super cute, sweet older lady named Gabby. We decided to call her Mother Hen because anytime we were about to cross a street she would step in front of all of us, hold her arms to the side, and wait until there were no cars to put her arms down and let us cross the street. She’s our favorite so far. We took a very short bus tour of Dresden, and then Gabby guided us for 2 hours through the picturesque Old Town of Dresden. We saw some of the most beautiful buildings and churches I have ever seen. I have pictures, but looking through them they just don’t do the places we saw today any justice. It was like walking through a storybook. As Gabby would later say, it reminded her of Disney Land and Beauty and the Beast. The only thing that stood out was random people-statues placed all over; this included a very creepy looking witch I thought was Dumbledore from afar.

After our tour was over, Allie, Carl and I decided to head towards the market to grab some lunch. We got ourselves some brawts and let Carl decide where to sit. He decided on this nice table near a very peaceful looking fountain, it seemed calm enough. Oh no. Allie and I got our butts soaked from sitting on the bench without realizing there was water all over it. And then halfway through lunch, the wind and the fountain decided to wage an attack on me and get only me super wet. I jumped across Allie and she lost half of her bratwurst, and I still got soaked. We decided to move after that. Once we were done with lunch, we decided to walk through the city and go into every building we could. The Protestant church was by far the most beautiful thing we saw all day. The inside was so richly decorated; the pictures I took (illegally) don’t portray even half of the inside’s beauty. After being dark gray and drizzly all day, the god’s decided it was time for us to leave Dresden; and with a downpour that could match Seattle’s worst day, Dresden bid us farewell.

It was only supposed to be an hour and a half drive from Dresden to Prague, but the traffic inside the city of Prague was maddening, so it took us a little over two hours. Just from our driving through the city I can say Prague does not look anything like I imagined it. Finally, I feel like I’m in Europe and not just some city in the United States. That is the one thing going for it- Prague is most definitely an old European city.  We had to park or 3 greyhound-type buses on the side (in the middle) of the street to unload our bags, and for twenty minutes all you could hear inside the hotel was cars honking outside at the buses, and 200 college students buzzing about in a hotel lobby. Dinner was supposed to be at 7:30PM, but Audrey and I decided not to pay attention to the clock until 7:45PM so we were a little late. From first impression, I think I’m going to like Czech food better than I did German. But I should really wait for breakfast to decide that.

This hotel, praise the Lord, has Wi-Fi, hence why I am posting the last four days’ worth of blogging now. It was nice to stay in for one night and spend some time just hanging out with the girls and catching up with friends on Facebook. Tomorrow however, we have much to do. It is our only day in Prague and we are determined to find the 5 story dance club so that we can celebrate our last night in Prague the best we can.


Thursday, September 8th

Definitely American

Today was our last full day in Berlin. The GIF staff decided to wear us down, probably in order for us to go to bed early and be happy, cheerful for our drive to Prague tomorrow. While their efforts were admirable, they failed.
Our adventure for the day was going to Sauchsenhausen. It was a concentration camp during the Holocaust located just north of Berlin. It was more of a work camp than an extermination camp like Auschwitz, but still very emotional and eery. We were given a guided tour at the beginning and learned a lot about the history of the camp and the different people who were prisoners there. It started out as a training facility for the Nazi gestapo, but was quickly turned into the work camp targeted at political prisoners. After the war, it became an internment camp set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. Those people with alleged ties to the Nazi's were arrested and set to Sauchsenhausen, not all survived. At the beginning of the tour, our guide made it seem like the only museum aspect to the camp was inside the remodeled barracks... so Allie and I spent a good portion of time reading everything we could inside those two buildings. When we finally walked back outside, we realized we were the only Gonzaga students still there. We ran into Carl and decided to explore the rest of the grounds. We quickly realized that inside every building on the grounds were museums. Two and a half hours later, I looked at my watch and discovered that it was only 5 minutes before we were supposed to be back on the bus, so we took off running. We hadn't gotten to read and see everything we had wanted too, but it was more important not to get left behind in the concentration camp.Exhausted and out of breath, we reached our bus with no time to spare, only to sit on the bus for another 20 minutes because not all of the buses had all of their passengers. Our luck.
After we returned to the city, we were given the rest of the afternoon to do our own exploring before we were to meet downtown at a restaurant where all 200 of us were going to have dinner. Allie, Gabby and I decided to walk down the street to some of the stores and food places to grab some lunch. We got sidetracked and ended up window shopping more than anything, something I do not recommend doing when you have no money. It wasn't long before we realized this and decided to take the metro downtown and see what we could find down there to do before dinner. And so the adventure began.
We had only taken the metro once before, and that was with GIF staff to the Jewish museum yesterday. That didn't seem to hinder us at all. I was pretty confident in my abilities to navigate the system, seeing as how it is basically like the subway system in New York. And Allie is pretty good with directions. Gabby isn't so great, but she is a fantastic cheerleader. We had been told that we needed to take the U2. It was supposed to be a straight shot to Alexanderplatz, making it the easiest way to get there. Lucky us, we discovered that the U2 is down for construction all week, so I began pouring over the metro map trying to figure out which train we now needed to take. Because of the down U2, there was no longer a straight shot downtown; instead, we had to take one train part way then transfer to another to get to where we needed to be. After two failed attempts at finding the right train, we finally got on the right metro and off we went. Transferring was not as easy at it looked. We found where the train was going to be, but got on the wrong one. Apparently, even though on the map it says the S3 is supposed to go all the way to Alexanderplatz, it actually ends one stop away from where we got on it. Thankfully, it was an easy transfer to a train that would go all the way.
When we finally got to our destination, we spent the next few hours meandering our way down the street, taking pictures, and running into Gonzaga kids. We had dinner at Brauhaus Mitte- our first authentic German meal (besides bratwursts for lunch), and I must say, it was quite delicious. However, we were the first ones there. We waited until a couple other Gonzaga girls showed up to go inside. Because we were only 6 out of the 200 people our reservation was being held for, they wouldn't let us back to the banquet room, so we decided to stand around in the lobby. A group of German guys, around our age, walked past us at one point, and Allie distinctly heard them say, "Definitely American" to one another. We aren't entirely sure how they knew, since we weren't talking, but can take a guess that it probably had something to do with our wearing of North Face Jackets. Dumb German boys.
After dinner, since it was our last night in Berlin, everyone decided to go out. To the same place. The last thing we wanted to do was go to the same bar as 200 Gonzaga kids. We bailed and ended up at the Irish Pub Allie had wanted to go to since day 1. Good choice on our part. We drank Shamrocks, listened to a good Irish band, and laughed at drunk 50 year old women dancing provocatively with even drunker, older men.
Our last night in Berlin was a success. There are still things I would like to see and do here, but its off to Dresden and Prague in the morning!

Wednesday, September 7th

Are you locals?

Berlin is much prettier than I expected.

We started off the day with a 3 hour guided bus tour of the city. I am quite proud of myself for how many pictures I took throughout the day. They gave us the option to get off the bus downtown on our way back to the hotel, so we took that chance to get off and go shopping and grab lunch. We found this super cute German version of Forever 21 and it took everything I had not to buy this very cute dress that I didn’t need. Buying anything here throws us all off a bit. In euro’s, nothing seems all that expensive. It’s when we remember that we have to add half the price to get what it actually is in American dollars, and that is when everything starts to look very overpriced. Moral of the story- I didn’t buy the dress.

One thing I wanted to do while I was in Berlin was to eat a bratwurst. My two summers working at the German-American food stand at the Olympia Farmers Market has made me curious as to how different bratwurst, currywurst, and the other sausages we sold are in comparison to the authentic thing. Lucky for me everyone else had the same idea, and we managed to wander directly into the town square where each way you turned was a different authentic German food stand. I got a currywurst because well, 1. I asked for a bratwurst but none were ready so she offered me a currywurst instead and 2. At the last minute I also remembered that in Germany the sausage used in a currywurst is actually the sausage we refer to as bratwurst. It was so much better than anything I ever sold at the stand at the market. I’m not saying I will eat bratwurst more often now, but I do admit that I may have it a few more times if it comes from Germany.

This afternoon was free, but the school had 3 optional tours that we could choose from if we wanted to do something other than wander randomly around the city. I decided to go to the Jewish Museum with Allie, Gabby, Jessie, Caleb and Vince. The boys were nice enough to bail on us once we were there for 5 minutes, so we didn’t have to hear their complaints the entire time. In my opinion, the New York Jewish Museum is better. I enjoyed going today and looking around, but my main interest is the Holocaust and World War 2 and the amount of the museum dedicated to that part of Jewish history was sadly lacking. They did have a very interesting Holocaust Tower, which wasn’t a tower at all. Instead, it was a cement room where you could still hear the outside world but only a little sunlight was coming through one corner of the ceiling. We spent five minutes sitting on the floor just staring up at the 30 foot ceiling. It was eerie and disturbing, but a little bit eye opening. The entire museum was architecturally significant. The building was in the shape of a lightning bolt and everything was tilted or off center. It was made by a Jewish-American architect from New York. He wanted to design the building so that the architecture itself was just as much of a moving experience as the pieces of history inside of it.

We took the metro back to the west side of the city and grabbed some apples and wine at the local market for an afternoon snack in the park. Not even thinking about it, we got to the park and realized we had no way of opening the bottle of wine. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. For dinner, we decided to walk around and eat wherever we thought looked good. Down this one block was a very small, beautiful Spanish restaurant. We took a seat on the sidewalk next to a group of locals and had a delicious dinner of tapas. On the way to the restaurant, a couple with luggage in tow and who looked very lost, asked us in pretty good English if we were locals. We told them that we were Americans and probably wouldn’t be of much help. It’s nice to know that when we don’t speak and are walking with confidence in some direction we can pass as somewhat European. Hopefully we can keep this up; maybe once we’ve learned some Italian we will be able to pass as locals? I doubt it, but we can try. 

Tuesday, September 6th

What up, Berlin?

The adventure that we began yesterday morning finally came to a very much celebrated end today. After getting a good 3 hours nights’ rest on the plane from Newark, we arrived in Berlin, Germany at 11AM this morning (Monday). In case you missed it, that’s a total of 13 hours flying time. NOT including layovers and sitting on tarmacs. I feel no desire to step foot on a plane anytime soon. Anyways… as we learned very early, the Germans do things a bit differently. Customs, apparently, is not a big deal to them. I have traveled to Mexico plenty of times and am used to the thorough customs inspection leaving and entering the country. Since I am so used to America being very interested in every single item you are bringing back into the country, I assumed Germany would be just as interested in what 80 college students were bringing into their lovely home. I was wrong. The entire process consisted of: 1. Getting off the plane and 2. Showing them our passport (which they barely glanced at before stamping it with the seal welcoming us to the country). All of us were a little thrown back by this lacksidaisical approach to security, but hey- less hassle for us too.

A few of us (myself not included) had gotten our backpacks checked back in Denver because there wasn’t enough room in the overhead compartments. This seemed like a good deal, until we were in Germany and none of their bags were coming at baggage claim. I got lucky with my bags being some of the first in our group to come up. If no one else got their bags, we had all decided we were sharing my 6 shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of basketball shorts, 1 jacket and 1 sweatshirt for the 10 day trip. After what seemed like an hour of waiting for bags, while getting stared at by the locals for the amount of noise we were all making, all the bags were accounted for and we headed out of the airport in search of large taxi’s to take us to our home of 3 days.

Getting a taxi in Germany is not the same as getting a taxi in New York. There is no line, no one is directing the incoming taxis, and most of them look as if they wouldn’t fit one suitcase in them let alone a person and a suitcase. A nice taxi driver took pity on us and waved down a large enough taxi van to fit all 5 of us; we didn’t think we looked that pathetic, but it’s no big secret that we probably wouldn’t have gotten a taxi without his help. The one thing German taxi drivers do have in common with the lovely drivers of New York City is their crazy, borderline dangerous, driving styles. We made it to the hotel alive, and thanks to the amount of us, was only 5 euro each.

The hotel was already buzzing with Gonzaga students when we got there. The staff of Hotel Hamburg have got to be extremely patient, or accommodating, people to put up with all of us. I feel bad for anyone who decided they wanted to stay here the next 3 days with us taking over the place. It’s a good thing now that our flight wasn’t on time, getting in at 11 was early enough. The rooms weren’t going to be ready until 2PM so a group of us decided to wander around to find “beer and brawts” as the guys would repeatedly yell too loudly on the street. Much to their disappointment, we got lost instead of finding the coveted “beer and brawts” so we settled on a Greek restaurant that had enough room outside to seat all of us. The food was pretty good, and pretty cheap for the amount we were given.

Basically the rest of the day consisted of sleeping. Dinner wasn’t until 8:15PM so most of us slept until around 6 and then went in search of free internet to send out a few emails to let all of you back home know we were still alive and not in jail. It’s almost 10PM here now and while we should be out getting crazy, we have decided it would be best to sleep tonight- party tomorrow. 

Monday, September 5th

Let's get to Europe already

I am only halfway to Europe, but I feel like I've been traveling for a week. I left Olympia yesterday afternoon on a flight to Denver; met up with Gabby and we hung out at Allie's house watching some Jersey Shore and That 70's Show. The morning started out just fantastic. Last night we looked online and discovered that our first checked bag was free, but a second was $50. No big deal. However, if a bag went over 50 pounds it was $200 charge. That got us all pretty nervous. Thankfully, since I flew yesterday, I knew my bags were a lovely 47 and 48 pounds. So, imagine my surprise when one of my bags weighed in at 54 pounds. It took me taking two pairs of shoes out and my blow dryer to realize I had put my 7 pound laptop in the front pocket. Thankfully the lady working the counter was super nice and checked me into my flight and got me my boarding passes while I was putting all of my stuff back in my bag. We should have known then that our trip was going to be an interesting one.
At first, our flight had gotten chanced from 10:50AM to 10Am, but apparently Obama decided he was also going to Newark this morning so our flight got delayed until close to 11:30AM. So, by the time we got into Newark at 5PM we were starving only having had a muffin before the flight. If we had known we were going to get stuck on more than our water bottles on the plane.
The flight was fine, other than how long it felt. Since we were about to pass out from starvation, we made our way to a sandwich shop and ate some deliciously, crappy airport food. Now, as I sit and type this, we are hanging out with some other GU kids outside of our gate, waiting to board the 8 hour flight to Germany. We have AdvilPM so hopefully it won't be as terrible as it sounds.

Arrivederci USA, Ciao Italia

My flight leaves in less than 12 hours and my bags are still empty. Get ready Florence, Gonzaga is headed your way. The next four months are going to be the best of our lives. Bring on the adventure and beauty of Europe.