Following from the last entry, I still had a few days left to spend in Athens before heading back to London after the guys headed out. As one last hurrah with them, we all made our way to the Archeological Museum in Athens because our guide books said it was one of the top European museums. Personally, I disagreed. Maybe it was due to my general lack of interest towards a museum that solely focused on Ancient Greece or that we had been to so many museums at this point that I no longer had the patience. Although you may not believe it, spending an afternoon in a Museum can be one of the most exhausting things you can do. I don’t know if it is the walking, reading or attempted learning but it really just takes it out of you. Fortunately for me, the rest of the guys shared the same sentiments and we only spent about an hour in the museum before we all decided to call it a day. I wished them farewell, grabbed my camera and headed off towards the Acropolis for a day of sightseeing.
It isn’t entirely clear or well marked how to get up to the Acropolis from the ground so I just sort of headed up the plateau via the less strenuous routes and, before I knew it, I was looking out over Athens from a rocky outcropping. I didn’t really understand how big Athens was until I got above it. As I made my way from one hill to another, and finally up to the Acropolis, I realized that I couldn’t see a city limit in any direction except for the Mediterranean to the south. I won’t attempt to test my literary skill by describing how stunningly gorgeous the view was because I took enough pictures for any 3 people so check out Facebook instead! The beauty of the views, however, shouldn’t take anything away from how cool the remains of the Ancient Greek Acropolis are. Considering that those structures date from more than 2000 years ago it is kind of ridiculous that they are still standing, especially given how massive they are. From the top of the Acropolis I spotted a cool old amphitheater, the original Olympic Stadium and busy public square that I wanted to check so I made my way down there after exhausting all there was to do at the Acropolis. A few hours of walking around and exploring later, I was absolutely starving and needed a meal so I made my way back to my token gyro stand. Before I headed back to the hostel I made sure to check out the “Athens Flea Market.” In all honesty, it’s more of a collection of posh shops than a flea market but, like usual, it’s always fun to browse at things. Also, for the record, the part about Europe having cooler shoes than us still held true in Athens.
When I got back to the hostel I found a new guy who had inadvertently took my bed so, naturally we got to talking. Turns out he is an architecture student from Illinois studying in Versailles for the year and was on a trip to Athens and then some Greek Islands to do some sketching. Sounded like a hell of an academic trip to me. We talked for a bit, introduced ourselves (he was Phil) and he invited me to a hostel a little closer to downtown where his friend was staying. Apparently it had a miraculous rooftop bar and a great happy hour so I couldn’t resist. Turns out his friend, Jeff, was actually a 45 year old, married man with a wife and kids who had decided to head back to school to get his architecture degree and took on the tremendous undertaking of spending a year abroad. I can’t image how hard that would be with a wife and two young kids at home. Anyways, the happy hour turned out to be spectacular so we all enjoyed our fair share of beers and conversed about everything and nothing for a few hours. When we headed back to the hostel, I had planned on going to bed but, like usual, there was something going on that I couldn’t resist joining. Maxi and a few new hostel arrivals were on the roof so I headed up there and enjoyed the rest of the evening with them.
The following morning (well, late morning) Maxi and I headed down to the main square to meet up with some girls he had met while travelling in Eastern Europe. We did introductions and then headed to catch the tram down to the beach. The 45 minute ride to the water wasn’t ideal although finally getting to the beach made it all worth it! The four of us literally did ABSOLUTELY nothing all day and it was marvelous. We just hung out, listened to music (one of the girls ended up being a country fan which was great because I hadn’t listened to it for ages!) and soaked up the sun for hours. It saddened me that my flight back to London was the next night at 6pm because I had been having such a great time. That all changed when I got back to the hostel that night and started hearing about all of the flights being cancelled thanks to Iceland’s lovely volcano. According to the news that day, airspace might be reopened by Saturday afternoon so there was a small chance my flight me still be on. Knowing my luck though, I figured it would be best if I went to the airport in the morning to see the status of everything. I tried to keep an open mind about whatever might happen that day because in all reality, how bad could it possibly be to be “stranded” in such a wonderful place? Positive vibes of course! I finally managed to get to bed decently early after a wonderful conversation about Pikies (like those in Snatch) with the resident bartender – turns out that the movie’s depictions are pretty close to real, not just a Hollywood fabrication.
I got up in the morning, gathered my things and headed to catch a bus to Athens International Airport. All I wanted to do was check with Olympic Air to see what the status of my flight was and either get a new flight or hang out all day until my flight took off. Consistent with my luck, the Olympic Air queue when I got there was about 2 hours long and at least double any other line. So there I sat, neither the clock or the line seeming to move. When I finally found that my flight for the night was definitely cancelled, I obviously figured I’d be able to get something in the next few days but it turns out that, due to the cancellations, all flights were backlogged until a week later! My heart suddenly dropped and my optimism faded. I really didn’t have the money to hang out in Greece for another week despite how much fun it may have been and I also had to get to London by Friday to get some things from the guys house that I had planned on picking up. There was also the issue of the paper I had due the following Tuesday which I had budgeted myself a week to work on before this had happened. I checked with other airlines and the story was much of the same. Suddenly, I had no idea what to do and started searching for creative ways to get back to this lovely little island. Step 1 was to call the hostel and let them know that I would for sure be spending another night there…..
The journey will continue shortly for those who are interested! It’s quite the epic tale I assure you.
Cheers until then,
Patrick
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Greece, Part One - Possibly the Most Beautiful Place on Earth!
Hello all my faithful readers (mainly relatives I presume haha) and those of you who just check this out randomly!
There has been a bit of a hiatus since my last post despite my intentions of having this one done a week ago but I have gotten so caught up in relaxing that I just couldnt seem to find any free time to write! Anyways, here is a bit about my lovely stay in Greece before Iceland tried to keep me there :)
After a long night on a ferry and a day filled with poorly scheduled and bumpy trains, arriving to Hostel Zeus in Athens and reuniting with the gang from Rome was a big relief. I lugged my stuff up the 75 stairs to my room – a climb that would get rather annoying after 5 days – and looked forward to meeting fellow travelers. I was kindly greeted by an Aussie dressed in full beach attire and listening to some hip-hop who I came to know as Maxi. We did the general introductions, realized we got along pretty well and then did the usual “what are you doing here” conversation that never ceases to be interesting with kids from all over the world. As for Maxi, he had been working construction for the last 6 or 7 years, decided he was sick of it and wanted to use some of the money he had saved up to explore Europe for about 6 weeks and then go look for something a little less labor intensive back home. A half hour or so later I was informed by some Wisco folk that the gyro stands closed at 20:00 so I had to hurry down the street to the nearest stand to get a pair of kebobs. Admittedly, I had never really ventured into Greek food so I didn’t know what to expect. Oh was I pleasantly surprised! In a nutshell, the kebabs consisted of a grilled pita filled with a meat of your choice, cucumber sauce, fries and whatever other vegetables you wanted to put in there. And for less than 2 euro a piece, it’s safe to say that I ate 2 for every non-breakfast meal for the duration of my stay in Greece!
When I got back to the hostel, the manager was in the middle of telling the people in the lobby that the bar was about to open and he would give free shots to the first 10 people up there so, naturally, I raced up the stairs to solidify my spot in the free booze line. Unfortunately, the favorite liquor of the Greeks is Uzzo, a black licorice flavored vodka type thing. Didn’t care for it much but as long as I didnt pay for it would just be silly to turn it down! Interestingly enough, the hostel manager was a British guy who had left the motherland just to see something different. Kind of a quirky guy although he did tell a good story and did a good job of keeping us entertained if necessary: would learn quite a bit about the Greek people, Athens and Britain through conversations with him over the next few days. The guys had an epic adventure planned for the next day so I just grabbed a beer with no intention of staying up too late. In retrospect, I feel like I knew that that was just an optimistic intention. Maxi and I got to talking with a few others and 1 beer turned into more than 1 beer and a few games of King’s Cup. Then the barman brought out a hookah to bring a relaxing cap to the evening.
The plan for the next day was to get up early, head to Piraeus (Athens’ port) and catch a ferry to the Greek Island of Aegina. Compared to the party paradises of Santorini and Mykonos, Aegina is just a small laid back area without all of the tourist attractions but that didn’t bother us a bit. It was only 45 minutes and 9 Euro away by ferry and gave us a chance to spend almost an entire day on the beech relaxing. Considering I passed out almost immediately on the ferry, it felt like we were there in essentially no time and greeted by a cloudless day. We quickly scoped out the parts of the island we could see and then moved to the first obvious order of business: ATV rental. Originally Stallsmith and I didn’t partake in the rental and set off down the coastline to find a favorable beach. After about 45 minutes of picturesque scenery we came across a completely deserted sandy beach outfitted with umbrellas and lounge chairs. I can’t even explain how wonderful it was to just lay out in the sun for the first time in 7 or 8 months and welcome the sunburn that would soon follow. Eventually the ATV gang came roaring down the road and joined us on the beach with some music and a frisbee. The hours rolled by as we all soaked up the sun, enjoying life, Greece, Europe and vacation.
Every once so often, different people would grab the ATVs and go for a cruise along the coast. One after another people came back with their hair windblown and smiles on their faces until Julian and Abby returned with somber looks. They had been gone an awfully long time so, naturally, we made a barrage of bad jokes when they returned but once they got close enough we all noticed blood on both of their legs. Immediately we broke out into laughter and asked them what had happened. Apparently while attempting to do some donuts with the less than powerful ATVs, they had flipped it! Then, instead of coming back, they figured it would be best to head to the medical center in the town center which they had passed early. In a wonderful story that juxtaposes Europe against American, Julian reached for his wallet after they received treatment before being told “You don’t pay nothing, this is Greece not America!” Something like that says a lot about the differences between the fast capitalist lifestyle we have all gotten so used to and the laid back, relationship focused ideals that represent a lot of European cultures. Admittedly such ideals don’t help much for the debt crisis but they sure do make you feel welcome.
When the story was told and everyone got their laughs in, we all doubled up on the 4 ATVs we had and headed off for the opposite side of the island! The scenery as we made our way up the narrow winding roads from the coast up into the mountains was breathtaking. Not to sound like too much of a nerd but a lot it reminded me of the opening scene in Jurassic Park where the helicopter flies over the island...I digress haha. Our ATVs weren’t exactly high quality so they didnt really fly up the hills, especially Jon and Mikey’s which didn’t downshift into first gear so it often stalled on big climbs so they had to get off and push it up hills. Originally we didn’t know this and just figured they got behind a bit so we headed on forward. Once we hadn’t seen them for a while we figured it was probably best to stop and wait for them to make sure everything alright. We all completely died laughing when we saw Mikey pushing Jon on the ATV because they couldnt make it up the hilly section of road we just got done with. We all knew it wouldve been the right thing to do to go down there and help them but it was just far too funny to interrupt! Twenty minutes later when our stomachs hurt from laughter and they were sweaty and tired we were all together again to proceed downhill for the beach that was our final destination when we left the other side of the island 45 minutes before – we definitely took the long way! Due to our fiasco on the way over, we only had about an hour on the beach before we had to head back to catch our 8pm ferry to Athens. We got some gyros for fuel and revved up the ATVs again for the ride back. This time we pledged to not let Mikey and Jon fall so far behind. To make matters worse for them, their gas tank lid happed to wriggle itself free and fall down the mountain. One pleasure cruise later we arrived back at the port just in time.
Despite Julian’s attempts to shield the fact that he flipped the ATV, the rental folks were not at all happy about the scratches and damage to the ATV and ended up charging him a 70 Euro fine. As for the gas tank lid, who knew a little piece of plastic was worth 25 Euro?! The bad news put a little damper on a perfect day but eventually the anger turned into laugher over the entire scenario.
The guys were scheduled to leave the next day, giving me a few relaxing days to check out the Acropolis and relax on the beaches of Athens. We all enjoyed a few beers around the bar that evenings, marveled at our sunburn and reminisced on how great the last 3 weeks had been. There is no doubt that someday I will make sure to return to the Greek Islands! In the interest of length, I will cut this off here and leave the rest of my adventures in Athens for a later post...stay tuned because it will probably be coming up soon.
I trust everyone had a spectacular time at Mifflin and I’m real sorry I couldn’t be there! Good luck with finals and make sure to check out the pictures I’ve put up lately! Due to the length of this I have failed to re-read it for spelling and grammar so my sincerest apologies haha.
Cheers,
Patrick
There has been a bit of a hiatus since my last post despite my intentions of having this one done a week ago but I have gotten so caught up in relaxing that I just couldnt seem to find any free time to write! Anyways, here is a bit about my lovely stay in Greece before Iceland tried to keep me there :)
After a long night on a ferry and a day filled with poorly scheduled and bumpy trains, arriving to Hostel Zeus in Athens and reuniting with the gang from Rome was a big relief. I lugged my stuff up the 75 stairs to my room – a climb that would get rather annoying after 5 days – and looked forward to meeting fellow travelers. I was kindly greeted by an Aussie dressed in full beach attire and listening to some hip-hop who I came to know as Maxi. We did the general introductions, realized we got along pretty well and then did the usual “what are you doing here” conversation that never ceases to be interesting with kids from all over the world. As for Maxi, he had been working construction for the last 6 or 7 years, decided he was sick of it and wanted to use some of the money he had saved up to explore Europe for about 6 weeks and then go look for something a little less labor intensive back home. A half hour or so later I was informed by some Wisco folk that the gyro stands closed at 20:00 so I had to hurry down the street to the nearest stand to get a pair of kebobs. Admittedly, I had never really ventured into Greek food so I didn’t know what to expect. Oh was I pleasantly surprised! In a nutshell, the kebabs consisted of a grilled pita filled with a meat of your choice, cucumber sauce, fries and whatever other vegetables you wanted to put in there. And for less than 2 euro a piece, it’s safe to say that I ate 2 for every non-breakfast meal for the duration of my stay in Greece!
When I got back to the hostel, the manager was in the middle of telling the people in the lobby that the bar was about to open and he would give free shots to the first 10 people up there so, naturally, I raced up the stairs to solidify my spot in the free booze line. Unfortunately, the favorite liquor of the Greeks is Uzzo, a black licorice flavored vodka type thing. Didn’t care for it much but as long as I didnt pay for it would just be silly to turn it down! Interestingly enough, the hostel manager was a British guy who had left the motherland just to see something different. Kind of a quirky guy although he did tell a good story and did a good job of keeping us entertained if necessary: would learn quite a bit about the Greek people, Athens and Britain through conversations with him over the next few days. The guys had an epic adventure planned for the next day so I just grabbed a beer with no intention of staying up too late. In retrospect, I feel like I knew that that was just an optimistic intention. Maxi and I got to talking with a few others and 1 beer turned into more than 1 beer and a few games of King’s Cup. Then the barman brought out a hookah to bring a relaxing cap to the evening.
The plan for the next day was to get up early, head to Piraeus (Athens’ port) and catch a ferry to the Greek Island of Aegina. Compared to the party paradises of Santorini and Mykonos, Aegina is just a small laid back area without all of the tourist attractions but that didn’t bother us a bit. It was only 45 minutes and 9 Euro away by ferry and gave us a chance to spend almost an entire day on the beech relaxing. Considering I passed out almost immediately on the ferry, it felt like we were there in essentially no time and greeted by a cloudless day. We quickly scoped out the parts of the island we could see and then moved to the first obvious order of business: ATV rental. Originally Stallsmith and I didn’t partake in the rental and set off down the coastline to find a favorable beach. After about 45 minutes of picturesque scenery we came across a completely deserted sandy beach outfitted with umbrellas and lounge chairs. I can’t even explain how wonderful it was to just lay out in the sun for the first time in 7 or 8 months and welcome the sunburn that would soon follow. Eventually the ATV gang came roaring down the road and joined us on the beach with some music and a frisbee. The hours rolled by as we all soaked up the sun, enjoying life, Greece, Europe and vacation.
Every once so often, different people would grab the ATVs and go for a cruise along the coast. One after another people came back with their hair windblown and smiles on their faces until Julian and Abby returned with somber looks. They had been gone an awfully long time so, naturally, we made a barrage of bad jokes when they returned but once they got close enough we all noticed blood on both of their legs. Immediately we broke out into laughter and asked them what had happened. Apparently while attempting to do some donuts with the less than powerful ATVs, they had flipped it! Then, instead of coming back, they figured it would be best to head to the medical center in the town center which they had passed early. In a wonderful story that juxtaposes Europe against American, Julian reached for his wallet after they received treatment before being told “You don’t pay nothing, this is Greece not America!” Something like that says a lot about the differences between the fast capitalist lifestyle we have all gotten so used to and the laid back, relationship focused ideals that represent a lot of European cultures. Admittedly such ideals don’t help much for the debt crisis but they sure do make you feel welcome.
When the story was told and everyone got their laughs in, we all doubled up on the 4 ATVs we had and headed off for the opposite side of the island! The scenery as we made our way up the narrow winding roads from the coast up into the mountains was breathtaking. Not to sound like too much of a nerd but a lot it reminded me of the opening scene in Jurassic Park where the helicopter flies over the island...I digress haha. Our ATVs weren’t exactly high quality so they didnt really fly up the hills, especially Jon and Mikey’s which didn’t downshift into first gear so it often stalled on big climbs so they had to get off and push it up hills. Originally we didn’t know this and just figured they got behind a bit so we headed on forward. Once we hadn’t seen them for a while we figured it was probably best to stop and wait for them to make sure everything alright. We all completely died laughing when we saw Mikey pushing Jon on the ATV because they couldnt make it up the hilly section of road we just got done with. We all knew it wouldve been the right thing to do to go down there and help them but it was just far too funny to interrupt! Twenty minutes later when our stomachs hurt from laughter and they were sweaty and tired we were all together again to proceed downhill for the beach that was our final destination when we left the other side of the island 45 minutes before – we definitely took the long way! Due to our fiasco on the way over, we only had about an hour on the beach before we had to head back to catch our 8pm ferry to Athens. We got some gyros for fuel and revved up the ATVs again for the ride back. This time we pledged to not let Mikey and Jon fall so far behind. To make matters worse for them, their gas tank lid happed to wriggle itself free and fall down the mountain. One pleasure cruise later we arrived back at the port just in time.
Despite Julian’s attempts to shield the fact that he flipped the ATV, the rental folks were not at all happy about the scratches and damage to the ATV and ended up charging him a 70 Euro fine. As for the gas tank lid, who knew a little piece of plastic was worth 25 Euro?! The bad news put a little damper on a perfect day but eventually the anger turned into laugher over the entire scenario.
The guys were scheduled to leave the next day, giving me a few relaxing days to check out the Acropolis and relax on the beaches of Athens. We all enjoyed a few beers around the bar that evenings, marveled at our sunburn and reminisced on how great the last 3 weeks had been. There is no doubt that someday I will make sure to return to the Greek Islands! In the interest of length, I will cut this off here and leave the rest of my adventures in Athens for a later post...stay tuned because it will probably be coming up soon.
I trust everyone had a spectacular time at Mifflin and I’m real sorry I couldn’t be there! Good luck with finals and make sure to check out the pictures I’ve put up lately! Due to the length of this I have failed to re-read it for spelling and grammar so my sincerest apologies haha.
Cheers,
Patrick
Friday, April 23, 2010
Escape from Italy!
The plan to get from Rome to Greece was relatively simple. Leave Lucas' place in the morning, catch an 11:15 train to Bari on the southeast coast of Italy that would arrive at about 16:00 giving me 4 hours to get my ferry ticket and relax. To be honest, I had been looking forward to the journey for a while just to have some free time to catch up on my blog, write some post cards and finish a book.
Unfortunately for me, that plan fell through right after step 1. The guy at the ticket window told me that the train at 11:15 was supposedly full, which I didnt really believe at all because there just couldn't be that many people that had to get to Bari on a Monday morning, so I had to get a ticket for a 2:45 train that would only leave me an hour to get from the Bari train station to the port, get my ticket, check in and board. He did tell me that if I just went to the platform of the 11:15 train that there may be a chance they would let me on that train. I really didn't want to risk it so I sat and waited for the platform number to appear on the large display board of departures. Waiting for the number to show up resembled watching paint dry and became especially frustrating when all of the numbers came up for the trains leaving before and after it. After what seemed like days it was 11:15 and then the entire line cleared and there was no longer a departure to Bari. Well, isn't that just inconvenient. I found out later that the train was cancelled due to an unnamed 'catastrophe' on another line...what luck! Now that I had 3 hours to kill and nowhere to go, I pumped out about 12 postcards that i had been collecting along the way to Rome and then boarded my train.
After about 10 minutes on the train the Italian ticket man came around to punch little holes in our tickets confirming that we paid for the train. He marked mine and then started to ramble something to me in Italian that I couldn't understand at all. The only thing I really got out of it was that I had to get off the train at a certain stop he wrote down. I started to get a bit worried since I was going to be pressed for time anyways and I wanted to know what was going on so I went searching the cars for a bilingual Italiano. Turns out that the aforementioned catastrophe had closed a part of the direct line from Rome to Bari so we would have to get off the current train, then get on a coach to another train station to catch the final leg of the journey. This would've been all fine and dandy if it weren't for that 8pm deadline I was trying to catch. All I could do was sit on the bus and stare at my watch as it passed the 6:45 mark when our entire journey was supposed to be over. Naturally, I though my awful luck had followed me yet again and I would have to find a cheap hotel in Bari for the night and catch a ferry the next night. It wasn't even so much the money that concerned me just that I would have practically 2 less days in Athens! Suddenly I started to wish I wouldve just flown. We ended up getting into Bari train station at 7:45 where I sprinted off of the train to a taxi and mustered up my best Italian "Porto Maritima..PRONTO!"
The taxi driver seemed to really enjoy my sense of urgency and delighted in almost hitting about 3 people and getting us killed a few seperate times on the way to the port but, needless to say, I greatly appreciated his efforts. I ended up arriving at the port at about 7:55 where I grabbed my things, threw 20 Euros at the taxi driver, which I was convinced was robbery for a 7 mintue ride but I didn't have the time to argue, and then sprinted into the ticket office. I immediately started pleaded for a ticket to the boat because I knew it was still sitting at the dock. Right as the lady was telling me it was impossible for her to issue me a ticket so late, a group of 4 ran into the door and started yelling for tickets as well. It quickly became apparent that they were also on my train and stuck in the same dire situation. The ticket lady didn't really give us the time of day until the new group's Italian cab driver rushed in and started making a racket in Italian. I have absolutely no idea what he told the woman at the window; all I know is that, whatever he said, it worked and she issued us all last minute tickets onto the ferry set to leave in less than a mintue! In a Titanic-esque fashion, we all sprinted towards the ferry dock. The ferry captain didn't seem to care much that passengers still weren't on board - the 4 of us litterly jumped onto the ship as it disembarked.
Nothing like a minor crisis to bring some random strangers together. We were all relieved beyond belief just to be on that boat and not have to spend a night in Bari. One of the of the people was a girl who turned out to be from Manitowoc, WI and was having a bit of a Eurotrip. In another small world incidence, it turns out she had been staying with Julian at a mutual friend's house in Rome. The other two were a wonderfully nice older couple from Australia who were spending 3.5 months travelling the world. They had started in Singapore, India and were now in Europe before heading to Canada and the US. In fits of mutual excitement that we all made it on the boat, we all had a few drinks, relaxed and shared a bit of our personal backgrounds. It wasnt until I started to get tired from the day of travelling that I realized I only had a deck ticket instead of a cabin and would have to sleep on the floor for the evening. All things considered, it really wasn't so bad...I was just content that I had made it on the boat and I was so tired that I actually got a great nights rest!
After being rudely awakened by a crew member at 6:30AM I headed onto the deck to be greeted by some absolutely lovely views of the Greek Islands. Of course, arriving in the Greek port of Patras didn't mark the end of my journey; I still had to hop on a train to Athens. It figures that, just like the train from Rome to Bari, the train from Patras to Athens also involved a partial bus journey that made a 2 hour ride into a 4 hour spectacle. Honestly, what are the chances that the two trains I needed to get from Rome to Athens were spontaneously under construction?? It was quite a relief to arrive at Hostel Zeus, reunite with guys and get ready to enjoy 5 lazy days in Greece :)
Well, I doubt the lot of you have made it to the end of this so I will cut it off for now haha :) More about the days I spent in Greece and my ridiculous trip home from Athens in the next few days! Happy Mifflin to everyone and see you all in like 30 days
Cheers,
Patrick
Unfortunately for me, that plan fell through right after step 1. The guy at the ticket window told me that the train at 11:15 was supposedly full, which I didnt really believe at all because there just couldn't be that many people that had to get to Bari on a Monday morning, so I had to get a ticket for a 2:45 train that would only leave me an hour to get from the Bari train station to the port, get my ticket, check in and board. He did tell me that if I just went to the platform of the 11:15 train that there may be a chance they would let me on that train. I really didn't want to risk it so I sat and waited for the platform number to appear on the large display board of departures. Waiting for the number to show up resembled watching paint dry and became especially frustrating when all of the numbers came up for the trains leaving before and after it. After what seemed like days it was 11:15 and then the entire line cleared and there was no longer a departure to Bari. Well, isn't that just inconvenient. I found out later that the train was cancelled due to an unnamed 'catastrophe' on another line...what luck! Now that I had 3 hours to kill and nowhere to go, I pumped out about 12 postcards that i had been collecting along the way to Rome and then boarded my train.
After about 10 minutes on the train the Italian ticket man came around to punch little holes in our tickets confirming that we paid for the train. He marked mine and then started to ramble something to me in Italian that I couldn't understand at all. The only thing I really got out of it was that I had to get off the train at a certain stop he wrote down. I started to get a bit worried since I was going to be pressed for time anyways and I wanted to know what was going on so I went searching the cars for a bilingual Italiano. Turns out that the aforementioned catastrophe had closed a part of the direct line from Rome to Bari so we would have to get off the current train, then get on a coach to another train station to catch the final leg of the journey. This would've been all fine and dandy if it weren't for that 8pm deadline I was trying to catch. All I could do was sit on the bus and stare at my watch as it passed the 6:45 mark when our entire journey was supposed to be over. Naturally, I though my awful luck had followed me yet again and I would have to find a cheap hotel in Bari for the night and catch a ferry the next night. It wasn't even so much the money that concerned me just that I would have practically 2 less days in Athens! Suddenly I started to wish I wouldve just flown. We ended up getting into Bari train station at 7:45 where I sprinted off of the train to a taxi and mustered up my best Italian "Porto Maritima..PRONTO!"
The taxi driver seemed to really enjoy my sense of urgency and delighted in almost hitting about 3 people and getting us killed a few seperate times on the way to the port but, needless to say, I greatly appreciated his efforts. I ended up arriving at the port at about 7:55 where I grabbed my things, threw 20 Euros at the taxi driver, which I was convinced was robbery for a 7 mintue ride but I didn't have the time to argue, and then sprinted into the ticket office. I immediately started pleaded for a ticket to the boat because I knew it was still sitting at the dock. Right as the lady was telling me it was impossible for her to issue me a ticket so late, a group of 4 ran into the door and started yelling for tickets as well. It quickly became apparent that they were also on my train and stuck in the same dire situation. The ticket lady didn't really give us the time of day until the new group's Italian cab driver rushed in and started making a racket in Italian. I have absolutely no idea what he told the woman at the window; all I know is that, whatever he said, it worked and she issued us all last minute tickets onto the ferry set to leave in less than a mintue! In a Titanic-esque fashion, we all sprinted towards the ferry dock. The ferry captain didn't seem to care much that passengers still weren't on board - the 4 of us litterly jumped onto the ship as it disembarked.
Nothing like a minor crisis to bring some random strangers together. We were all relieved beyond belief just to be on that boat and not have to spend a night in Bari. One of the of the people was a girl who turned out to be from Manitowoc, WI and was having a bit of a Eurotrip. In another small world incidence, it turns out she had been staying with Julian at a mutual friend's house in Rome. The other two were a wonderfully nice older couple from Australia who were spending 3.5 months travelling the world. They had started in Singapore, India and were now in Europe before heading to Canada and the US. In fits of mutual excitement that we all made it on the boat, we all had a few drinks, relaxed and shared a bit of our personal backgrounds. It wasnt until I started to get tired from the day of travelling that I realized I only had a deck ticket instead of a cabin and would have to sleep on the floor for the evening. All things considered, it really wasn't so bad...I was just content that I had made it on the boat and I was so tired that I actually got a great nights rest!
After being rudely awakened by a crew member at 6:30AM I headed onto the deck to be greeted by some absolutely lovely views of the Greek Islands. Of course, arriving in the Greek port of Patras didn't mark the end of my journey; I still had to hop on a train to Athens. It figures that, just like the train from Rome to Bari, the train from Patras to Athens also involved a partial bus journey that made a 2 hour ride into a 4 hour spectacle. Honestly, what are the chances that the two trains I needed to get from Rome to Athens were spontaneously under construction?? It was quite a relief to arrive at Hostel Zeus, reunite with guys and get ready to enjoy 5 lazy days in Greece :)
Well, I doubt the lot of you have made it to the end of this so I will cut it off for now haha :) More about the days I spent in Greece and my ridiculous trip home from Athens in the next few days! Happy Mifflin to everyone and see you all in like 30 days
Cheers,
Patrick
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Roma, Roma, Roma
I think it is safe to say that we were all incredibly excited to be arriving in Rome for 4 days of adventuring and gelato eating. Our group had sort of split up when leaving Naples so we got into Termini station at about 8:30pm giving us plenty of time to see some of Rome's most famous sights illumnated for the evening. We made the short walk from the station to our hostel where we checked in quickly. Upon entering our room, Mike and I could only laugh at the cascade of hard liquor and beer bottles that scattered the floor - it seemed as if we had some rowdy roomates who had been around for a few days.
Our first destination was the incredible Treviso Fountain although it probably took us much longer to get there than it should have thanks to Rome's lack of city structure. On the way, we were confronted by a fellow American from Ohio currently living in Greece and were delighted to get to know him for a bit on our walk. Masterfully lit up, the fountain quite literally is a jaw dropping sight. Of course we took a barrage of pictures and then followed suit with tradition which says that if you throw in one coin you will return to rome and if you throw in two that you will fall in love there. With the exception of Party Jon, we all tossed in a single piece of change.
On the way from the fountain to the Coloseum we were randomly and abrubtly flagged down by a random driver who asked us where we were from (since it was obvious that we were not locals). We told him America greatly exciting him and then more specifically that we were from Chicago since nobody really knows where Wisconsin is anyway. His immediate reaction to our description was "yes America, I love it!...Chicago, yes....50 Cent, 50 Cent!" and then he drove off as quickly as he came. The Coloseum was equally brilliant with its soft yellow glow. Like has happened to me so many times on this trip, it really took a while for the realization that I was actually standing in Rome at the Coloseum to set in. At about midnight we decided that enough pictures had been taken and it was time to head home in the shadiest possible way. Of course, we ventured through the same park the next day and it was rather pleasant but at night it left us paranoid.
We planned on hitting the sheets early but our plans changed dramatically when those mysterious roomates of ours turned out to be a group of Germans from Bavaria on holiday. They were seated around a table, decked out in full traditional Leiderhosen with about 3 bottles of vodka open, beer bottles scattered about and a hookah. They immediately asked us to join and we simply couldn't say no. We played thumper and shared some comical cross cultural conversations while they insisted that we drink as much of their alcohol as we could. Needless to say it was about 4:30am before the desk manager of the hostel came in and shut the party down because it was disturbing other guests!
Day two brought us, and some girls we met up with who are also studyign in London, back to the Coloseum for a proper tour. For me, being inside and reading about the events that took place there really sparked my imagination. I kept picturing what it would be like to fill the giant arena with 55,000 screaming Romans who were watching men fight bears, tigers and, on a bad day, other men. In the first 100 days when the Coloseum was open and event was thrown every day free of charge to Roman citizens and after those days over 9,000 animals were killed NOT including people! Following the Coloseum we traveled to the Roman Forum. It is the largest collection of ruins in the city and was the area where all of the major commerce, religious and buerocratic functions took place in Rome. The size, scale, and brilliance of what remains only leaves you to imagine what once stood. (Another fun fact about many ancient buildings is that, at the height of their existance, many of them were painted vibrant colors which have just faded away over 2000 years leaving the white marble that we see!) Looking down on the Forumn stands Palatine hill, a place also filled with ruins of gardens that shed light onto a society long deceased. If I remember correctly it is Palatine Hill where the city of Rome was supposedly founded according to the tale of the brothers Romulus and Remis. For the evening we enjoyed an authentic Italian dinner and then proceeded to indulge ourselves in 20 gigantic jugs of wine which, despite only costing 9 Euro a piece, we could not finish between the 6 of us. During the attempt to finish these jugs I learned that wine should not be consumed at the pace of beer - it seems fine and dandy when your drinking but after about an hour or two you realize that you have actually consumed twice the amount of alcohol. Just a thought :)
Day number three in Rome took us out of Italy into the Vatican (it is actually its own country with a seperate currency and post system). Having seen St. Paul's in London and the Duomo in Florence, I incorrectly imagined that St. Peter's would be about the same. On the contrary, the level of gradeur both inside and outside of the basillica completely takes your breath away. No detail was left unperfected by the marvel of 16th century engineering. Without 2,000 words it is rather impossible to properly describe the inside of the church so I will leave that to future pictures. As for the outside, it seemed to dwarf its aforementioned cousins. It was also fun to replay the Eurotrip scene in my head and figure out where exactly Scottie came out of to confess his love to Mika haha. Later in the day we would also climb to the top of the dome to view out over the vast expanses of Rome and its 7 hills.
Going backwards a bit, our first trip of the day involved the lengthy line at the Vatican Museum. Of course we took shifts in line in order to get Gelato from one of the most notable places in Rome - it helped a great deal to pass the time. The Vatican Museum holds so many important works of Renaissance art that, by the end of our 4 hour trek through its halls we were all completely exhausted. Only the Louvre seemed to have even more mental stimulation. Although a lot of the works went over our heads since none of us really study art history, we all followed our self apointed guide, Julian, with his Rick Steve's book so we could learn about the importance of what we were seeing. For me, actually seeing Raphael's famous "School of Athens" and, as the grande finale, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel was an amazing experince. I probably spent almost 30 min gazing at both of those works, taking in all the fine details and noting the ways in which they revolutionized art. A long day of learning only leads to a desire to drink afterwords so we all caught dinner, a few bottles of wine and headed to "The Drunken Ship" for cheap pichers of beer and to watch the Barcelona football match. One more gelato run on the way home capped a great day.
For my final day in Rome I met up with my friend Lucas from Madison to stay with him for the night before I had to catch my 16 hour ferry from Italy to Greece. He gave me a tour of some of the less touristy places in Rome for which I was very greatful. It takes some time to get to know a city like those who have lived there for a while and I definitely never wouldve stumbled upon the places he showed me by myself. Original plans to see the Roma game fell through but we still had a solid day and it was good to catch up and share stories from our travels. We returned to the place we had eaten dinner the previous two nights because, unknown to us, it was the favorite place to eat of study abroad students in Rome. Small world. For the first time since arriving I got a decent night's sleep before the long travel day I had ahead. I was actually sort of excited to have a relaxing journey on a train then ferry. Turns out however that, even 5000 miles away from home, I still cannot escape my rotten luck.....(intended cliffhanger haha).
Anyways, I am currently in the process of trying to get back to London thanks to Iceland and its wonderful volcano. I will save the whole story for a future entry but it has been an absolutely ridiculous experience so far! As of now my goal is to get to Paris by Thursday 4/22 at 2pm when I have a coach booked to head up to London. Keeping those positive vibes and fingers crossed :)
More about Greece soon and hope everyone in Europe is getting home safely and those in the Staters are content not to be stuck away from home haha. My story about how I got back from Iceland is an epic so stay tuned :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Our first destination was the incredible Treviso Fountain although it probably took us much longer to get there than it should have thanks to Rome's lack of city structure. On the way, we were confronted by a fellow American from Ohio currently living in Greece and were delighted to get to know him for a bit on our walk. Masterfully lit up, the fountain quite literally is a jaw dropping sight. Of course we took a barrage of pictures and then followed suit with tradition which says that if you throw in one coin you will return to rome and if you throw in two that you will fall in love there. With the exception of Party Jon, we all tossed in a single piece of change.
On the way from the fountain to the Coloseum we were randomly and abrubtly flagged down by a random driver who asked us where we were from (since it was obvious that we were not locals). We told him America greatly exciting him and then more specifically that we were from Chicago since nobody really knows where Wisconsin is anyway. His immediate reaction to our description was "yes America, I love it!...Chicago, yes....50 Cent, 50 Cent!" and then he drove off as quickly as he came. The Coloseum was equally brilliant with its soft yellow glow. Like has happened to me so many times on this trip, it really took a while for the realization that I was actually standing in Rome at the Coloseum to set in. At about midnight we decided that enough pictures had been taken and it was time to head home in the shadiest possible way. Of course, we ventured through the same park the next day and it was rather pleasant but at night it left us paranoid.
We planned on hitting the sheets early but our plans changed dramatically when those mysterious roomates of ours turned out to be a group of Germans from Bavaria on holiday. They were seated around a table, decked out in full traditional Leiderhosen with about 3 bottles of vodka open, beer bottles scattered about and a hookah. They immediately asked us to join and we simply couldn't say no. We played thumper and shared some comical cross cultural conversations while they insisted that we drink as much of their alcohol as we could. Needless to say it was about 4:30am before the desk manager of the hostel came in and shut the party down because it was disturbing other guests!
Day two brought us, and some girls we met up with who are also studyign in London, back to the Coloseum for a proper tour. For me, being inside and reading about the events that took place there really sparked my imagination. I kept picturing what it would be like to fill the giant arena with 55,000 screaming Romans who were watching men fight bears, tigers and, on a bad day, other men. In the first 100 days when the Coloseum was open and event was thrown every day free of charge to Roman citizens and after those days over 9,000 animals were killed NOT including people! Following the Coloseum we traveled to the Roman Forum. It is the largest collection of ruins in the city and was the area where all of the major commerce, religious and buerocratic functions took place in Rome. The size, scale, and brilliance of what remains only leaves you to imagine what once stood. (Another fun fact about many ancient buildings is that, at the height of their existance, many of them were painted vibrant colors which have just faded away over 2000 years leaving the white marble that we see!) Looking down on the Forumn stands Palatine hill, a place also filled with ruins of gardens that shed light onto a society long deceased. If I remember correctly it is Palatine Hill where the city of Rome was supposedly founded according to the tale of the brothers Romulus and Remis. For the evening we enjoyed an authentic Italian dinner and then proceeded to indulge ourselves in 20 gigantic jugs of wine which, despite only costing 9 Euro a piece, we could not finish between the 6 of us. During the attempt to finish these jugs I learned that wine should not be consumed at the pace of beer - it seems fine and dandy when your drinking but after about an hour or two you realize that you have actually consumed twice the amount of alcohol. Just a thought :)
Day number three in Rome took us out of Italy into the Vatican (it is actually its own country with a seperate currency and post system). Having seen St. Paul's in London and the Duomo in Florence, I incorrectly imagined that St. Peter's would be about the same. On the contrary, the level of gradeur both inside and outside of the basillica completely takes your breath away. No detail was left unperfected by the marvel of 16th century engineering. Without 2,000 words it is rather impossible to properly describe the inside of the church so I will leave that to future pictures. As for the outside, it seemed to dwarf its aforementioned cousins. It was also fun to replay the Eurotrip scene in my head and figure out where exactly Scottie came out of to confess his love to Mika haha. Later in the day we would also climb to the top of the dome to view out over the vast expanses of Rome and its 7 hills.
Going backwards a bit, our first trip of the day involved the lengthy line at the Vatican Museum. Of course we took shifts in line in order to get Gelato from one of the most notable places in Rome - it helped a great deal to pass the time. The Vatican Museum holds so many important works of Renaissance art that, by the end of our 4 hour trek through its halls we were all completely exhausted. Only the Louvre seemed to have even more mental stimulation. Although a lot of the works went over our heads since none of us really study art history, we all followed our self apointed guide, Julian, with his Rick Steve's book so we could learn about the importance of what we were seeing. For me, actually seeing Raphael's famous "School of Athens" and, as the grande finale, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel was an amazing experince. I probably spent almost 30 min gazing at both of those works, taking in all the fine details and noting the ways in which they revolutionized art. A long day of learning only leads to a desire to drink afterwords so we all caught dinner, a few bottles of wine and headed to "The Drunken Ship" for cheap pichers of beer and to watch the Barcelona football match. One more gelato run on the way home capped a great day.
For my final day in Rome I met up with my friend Lucas from Madison to stay with him for the night before I had to catch my 16 hour ferry from Italy to Greece. He gave me a tour of some of the less touristy places in Rome for which I was very greatful. It takes some time to get to know a city like those who have lived there for a while and I definitely never wouldve stumbled upon the places he showed me by myself. Original plans to see the Roma game fell through but we still had a solid day and it was good to catch up and share stories from our travels. We returned to the place we had eaten dinner the previous two nights because, unknown to us, it was the favorite place to eat of study abroad students in Rome. Small world. For the first time since arriving I got a decent night's sleep before the long travel day I had ahead. I was actually sort of excited to have a relaxing journey on a train then ferry. Turns out however that, even 5000 miles away from home, I still cannot escape my rotten luck.....(intended cliffhanger haha).
Anyways, I am currently in the process of trying to get back to London thanks to Iceland and its wonderful volcano. I will save the whole story for a future entry but it has been an absolutely ridiculous experience so far! As of now my goal is to get to Paris by Thursday 4/22 at 2pm when I have a coach booked to head up to London. Keeping those positive vibes and fingers crossed :)
More about Greece soon and hope everyone in Europe is getting home safely and those in the Staters are content not to be stuck away from home haha. My story about how I got back from Iceland is an epic so stay tuned :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Naples and Pompeii
This post is a bit belated and does not mention my current inability to get back to England thanks to Iceland and its stupid volcano! Off to Madrid for a few days and trying to catch a train to Paris then bus to London...ahhh!
For the first time since I've been in Europe, I got off of the train station in Naples and was completely underwhelmed. Not entirely sure why Naples gets built up as such a tourist destination (or how I got the impressions I had of it) but the reality is that the streets are rather dirty, littered with grafitti and there is a complete lack of the charm that has made the rest of Italy so wonderful. The dodgy walk to the hostel kept us all on our toes for what we thought as an imminent attack. Upon our arrival at the acclaimed hostel known as "Giovanni's House" which has recently been rated the world's best hostel, a lot of our perceptions changed. We walked in the door to find a nice old man that greeted us with glasses of water and had us all sit around his small computer desk. We got settled, he pulled out a map, a few books and proceeded to give us a description of everything Naples had to offer complete with history, pictures and crime statistics. Turns out that, contrary to popular perceptions, Naples is actually one of the least dangerous places in Italy due to the prescence of the mafia. Armed with 5 colors of highlighters, Giovanni mapped out a tour and showed us pictures of all the things to see in the city of Naples. We all just sat there with smiles on our faces, unable to believe the wonderful hospitality of the hostel owner when compared to some of the places we have stayed in the past. It was also funny how he didn't hesitate to frown upon many of the places around Naples to attempt to sway us to stay within the city. He called the Amolfi Coast, famous for its gorgeous cliffs, villages and tourism just "water and rocks," which, according to Giovanni you could find anywhere: "Naples is a beautiful city." After his historical presentation, he called and made reservations for us at what he called "the best pizza place in Naples" - it should also be noted that pizza was invented there so we had to go try it! After the pizza and calzones we all had, it was hard to not believe Giovanni about his reccomendations. To top off the evening, he brought chocolate around for all of us before bed..what a guy!
For our first full day in Naples, our group split up with a few people to head to the island of Capri just of the Naples coast and a few of us to make an attempt to do the tour Giovanni had given us. The things he told us to do weren't quite as cool as we had built them up to be after his speech but spending the day outside in gorgeous weather and spending a few hours tanning totally made up for. Not to mention we bought a real cheap little soccer ball and showed off our lack of talent in various public spaces around the city. Coming back to the hostel in early afternoon and spending some time relaxing and reading on Gio's rooftop balcony was just what the doctor ordered for me after a week of hiking and travelling. He even greeting us with home made spaghetti pie when we all returned for our day's explorations! The night concluded with another pizza run and a good night sleep since we had to get up real early to head off to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii.
After a short train ride, the first thing on our list was to hike up the volcanno infamous for destroying, and in turn, perserving Pompeii. We got a rather unsteady van about 3/4 way up the summit then set off on foot to the crater. Vesuvius isn't really a lava volcanno but looking into an active crater is still a pretty cool experience. More incredible than the mountain itself were the panoramic views of the surrounding area and the deep blues and greens of the Sea. Positively glorious! A barrage of pictures later, we hiked back down, got on the train and headed south towards Pompeii. Keeping pace with our usual quota of 1 travel mishap per city and end up going backwards before we could get there but it was all in good fun and we made the best of it. Pompeii itself isn't much for exciting to blog about however it was really awesome to see. So much of the city is preserved that you can pretty easily imagine what life used to be like for the great Roman city before the infamous volcano. Remains of the entire city are pretty intact instead of just monumental structures like in Rome or Athens so you can distinguish between the different dynamics that make up a city as a whole. With a map in hand and a little book that gives a brief description of each site we made our own sort of walking tour by having someone read the information outloud as we went. Like I said, not much to write about but still a great day.
From Pompeii we headed back to Giovanni's to grab out stuff, bid him farwell and thank him for the wonderful hospitality. To the train station we went where we hopped on a train for Rome! Of course, our train got delayed almost an hour but we were so excited it didn't much matter. We arrived in Rome three hours later, checked in, and immediately went out to check out the city at night passing by Treviso Founain and the Coloseum, both of which were absolutely glorious all lit up! It would only be the beginning of a few wonderful days :)
Just relaxing in my hostel in Athens at the moment, wishing I had another week here or on the islands. It may just be infatuation but I dare say I am in love with this place after only two days! If nothing else, I now have a wonderful excuse to come back when I have a bit more disposable income...if anybody wants in just let me kno :) I also can't believe that I head back to London in a few short days, maybe even before this gets posted. What a trip it has been!
Talk to everyone soon :)
Cheers,
Patrick
For the first time since I've been in Europe, I got off of the train station in Naples and was completely underwhelmed. Not entirely sure why Naples gets built up as such a tourist destination (or how I got the impressions I had of it) but the reality is that the streets are rather dirty, littered with grafitti and there is a complete lack of the charm that has made the rest of Italy so wonderful. The dodgy walk to the hostel kept us all on our toes for what we thought as an imminent attack. Upon our arrival at the acclaimed hostel known as "Giovanni's House" which has recently been rated the world's best hostel, a lot of our perceptions changed. We walked in the door to find a nice old man that greeted us with glasses of water and had us all sit around his small computer desk. We got settled, he pulled out a map, a few books and proceeded to give us a description of everything Naples had to offer complete with history, pictures and crime statistics. Turns out that, contrary to popular perceptions, Naples is actually one of the least dangerous places in Italy due to the prescence of the mafia. Armed with 5 colors of highlighters, Giovanni mapped out a tour and showed us pictures of all the things to see in the city of Naples. We all just sat there with smiles on our faces, unable to believe the wonderful hospitality of the hostel owner when compared to some of the places we have stayed in the past. It was also funny how he didn't hesitate to frown upon many of the places around Naples to attempt to sway us to stay within the city. He called the Amolfi Coast, famous for its gorgeous cliffs, villages and tourism just "water and rocks," which, according to Giovanni you could find anywhere: "Naples is a beautiful city." After his historical presentation, he called and made reservations for us at what he called "the best pizza place in Naples" - it should also be noted that pizza was invented there so we had to go try it! After the pizza and calzones we all had, it was hard to not believe Giovanni about his reccomendations. To top off the evening, he brought chocolate around for all of us before bed..what a guy!
For our first full day in Naples, our group split up with a few people to head to the island of Capri just of the Naples coast and a few of us to make an attempt to do the tour Giovanni had given us. The things he told us to do weren't quite as cool as we had built them up to be after his speech but spending the day outside in gorgeous weather and spending a few hours tanning totally made up for. Not to mention we bought a real cheap little soccer ball and showed off our lack of talent in various public spaces around the city. Coming back to the hostel in early afternoon and spending some time relaxing and reading on Gio's rooftop balcony was just what the doctor ordered for me after a week of hiking and travelling. He even greeting us with home made spaghetti pie when we all returned for our day's explorations! The night concluded with another pizza run and a good night sleep since we had to get up real early to head off to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii.
After a short train ride, the first thing on our list was to hike up the volcanno infamous for destroying, and in turn, perserving Pompeii. We got a rather unsteady van about 3/4 way up the summit then set off on foot to the crater. Vesuvius isn't really a lava volcanno but looking into an active crater is still a pretty cool experience. More incredible than the mountain itself were the panoramic views of the surrounding area and the deep blues and greens of the Sea. Positively glorious! A barrage of pictures later, we hiked back down, got on the train and headed south towards Pompeii. Keeping pace with our usual quota of 1 travel mishap per city and end up going backwards before we could get there but it was all in good fun and we made the best of it. Pompeii itself isn't much for exciting to blog about however it was really awesome to see. So much of the city is preserved that you can pretty easily imagine what life used to be like for the great Roman city before the infamous volcano. Remains of the entire city are pretty intact instead of just monumental structures like in Rome or Athens so you can distinguish between the different dynamics that make up a city as a whole. With a map in hand and a little book that gives a brief description of each site we made our own sort of walking tour by having someone read the information outloud as we went. Like I said, not much to write about but still a great day.
From Pompeii we headed back to Giovanni's to grab out stuff, bid him farwell and thank him for the wonderful hospitality. To the train station we went where we hopped on a train for Rome! Of course, our train got delayed almost an hour but we were so excited it didn't much matter. We arrived in Rome three hours later, checked in, and immediately went out to check out the city at night passing by Treviso Founain and the Coloseum, both of which were absolutely glorious all lit up! It would only be the beginning of a few wonderful days :)
Just relaxing in my hostel in Athens at the moment, wishing I had another week here or on the islands. It may just be infatuation but I dare say I am in love with this place after only two days! If nothing else, I now have a wonderful excuse to come back when I have a bit more disposable income...if anybody wants in just let me kno :) I also can't believe that I head back to London in a few short days, maybe even before this gets posted. What a trip it has been!
Talk to everyone soon :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Chillin in the Home of the Renaissance - Florence
My initial views of the beautiful city of Florence were a bit negative due to the downpour we arrived into and the decrepid state of our hostel, the "David Inn." We arrived at the hostel soaking wet despite umbrellas and raincoats to be checked in by a gangly looking Italian man with one large sideburn. We were trying to stay positive about it but the fact that there was one sink, one toilet and one shower for the 20 people there was absolutely horrible. Moreover, upon showing us around, our less than gracious host introduced the entire kitchen as 'broken.' How the hell is the entire kitchen broken? Nonetheless, we had two days there so we tried to make the best of it.
After another instance as the proverbial 'loud Americans' at an authentic Italian pizzeria, the next day greeted us with sunshine and a laundry list of thins to do and see. Florence is unlike any other city I have every been to. All of the architecture, from the size of the buildings to the classic terra cotta tile roofs give the entire Florence area an unparalleled sense of togetherness and unity. Even the gigantic Duomo at the center of the city holds the traditional color scheme while acting as the center piece for a city most well known for its intellectual role during the Renaissance. Walking around the streets of Florence can be somewhat overwhelming if you sit down and think about what you're doing - just imagining the people that walked through the same streets can be baffling. Notable Florentine inhabitants were not just celebrities but those who helped make the discoveries that shaped the world we live in.
Us guys met up with a group of girls from USC who are also studying in London and got in line to hike up the winding, narrow steps of the Duomo to get a birds eye view of the city. I spent the majority of the clime ducking and thankful that I was skinny. The builders of the dome were clearly under 5'10" and rather fit. Regardless of who they were, it still baffles me how such an enormous and gradiose structure was built by anyone over 500 years ago. Absolutely incredible. The view from the top gave a few of the city that really did its part to try and take your breath away. Again, I strongly adivse anyone to take 30 seconds and run a google search, it will be completely worth your time! For the rest of the day we all wandered the streets and outdoor markets, taking in the sights as we went. We made sure to head towards the Palazzo Vecchio, a large public square and Medici palace filled with some of the most impressive sculptures I have ever seen. There was also Ponte Vecchio, a nearby bridge which is covered with shops and houses similar to London Bridge a few hundred years ago. To end the day we found or selves some cheap bottles of wine and headed up to the Piazza Michealangelo which sat upon a hill south of the river giving a brilliant panoramic view of the city. We spent more than an hour up there passing bottles and watching the sun set. Normally, I dont consider going out to dinner a particularly notable occasion but we managed to find a place that gave unlimited amounts of free wine with dinner to student groups :) Lets just say we took advantage of it - Thank you Pizzaria Dante!
On our last day in Florence we tourned the world famous Uffizi Gallery and its beautiful collection of Renaissance art from some of the most notable artists in world history. Aside from that we took some time to enjoy the gorgeous day before hoping on our train down to Naples where our adventure would continue. I am currently in the last few hours of my ferry adventure (as of when I'm writing this, not when it will be posted) from Italy to Greece and excited to get into Athens for the evening. Along the way I have met a wonderful Australian couple taking a 3.5 month tour of the world who have been kind enough to buy me a few beers and breakfast :)
More to come and I promise I will put up pictures eventually! Hope all is well with everyone and I'll be in touch with a great deal of you once I get back to the UK :)
Cheers,
Patrick
After another instance as the proverbial 'loud Americans' at an authentic Italian pizzeria, the next day greeted us with sunshine and a laundry list of thins to do and see. Florence is unlike any other city I have every been to. All of the architecture, from the size of the buildings to the classic terra cotta tile roofs give the entire Florence area an unparalleled sense of togetherness and unity. Even the gigantic Duomo at the center of the city holds the traditional color scheme while acting as the center piece for a city most well known for its intellectual role during the Renaissance. Walking around the streets of Florence can be somewhat overwhelming if you sit down and think about what you're doing - just imagining the people that walked through the same streets can be baffling. Notable Florentine inhabitants were not just celebrities but those who helped make the discoveries that shaped the world we live in.
Us guys met up with a group of girls from USC who are also studying in London and got in line to hike up the winding, narrow steps of the Duomo to get a birds eye view of the city. I spent the majority of the clime ducking and thankful that I was skinny. The builders of the dome were clearly under 5'10" and rather fit. Regardless of who they were, it still baffles me how such an enormous and gradiose structure was built by anyone over 500 years ago. Absolutely incredible. The view from the top gave a few of the city that really did its part to try and take your breath away. Again, I strongly adivse anyone to take 30 seconds and run a google search, it will be completely worth your time! For the rest of the day we all wandered the streets and outdoor markets, taking in the sights as we went. We made sure to head towards the Palazzo Vecchio, a large public square and Medici palace filled with some of the most impressive sculptures I have ever seen. There was also Ponte Vecchio, a nearby bridge which is covered with shops and houses similar to London Bridge a few hundred years ago. To end the day we found or selves some cheap bottles of wine and headed up to the Piazza Michealangelo which sat upon a hill south of the river giving a brilliant panoramic view of the city. We spent more than an hour up there passing bottles and watching the sun set. Normally, I dont consider going out to dinner a particularly notable occasion but we managed to find a place that gave unlimited amounts of free wine with dinner to student groups :) Lets just say we took advantage of it - Thank you Pizzaria Dante!
On our last day in Florence we tourned the world famous Uffizi Gallery and its beautiful collection of Renaissance art from some of the most notable artists in world history. Aside from that we took some time to enjoy the gorgeous day before hoping on our train down to Naples where our adventure would continue. I am currently in the last few hours of my ferry adventure (as of when I'm writing this, not when it will be posted) from Italy to Greece and excited to get into Athens for the evening. Along the way I have met a wonderful Australian couple taking a 3.5 month tour of the world who have been kind enough to buy me a few beers and breakfast :)
More to come and I promise I will put up pictures eventually! Hope all is well with everyone and I'll be in touch with a great deal of you once I get back to the UK :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Cinque Terre National Park - The Hike of a Lifetime!
This entry is still a bit dated but I'm catching up :) Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes...I'm without spellcheck!
Although I had a great couple of days with random folks in Genoa, it was good to be with a gang again and headed off to the Cinque Terre National Park on the northwest coast of Italy. The park consists of cliffside paths that wind between five seperate villages that are embedded into the clifs and are about as quintessentially Italian as anything can get. I didn't really know much about the place myself but I had heard such good things that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make the hike. Our plan was to hike from the first village to the third village where we would spend a night at the hostel there and then finish the last two villages and catch a short train to Florence to continue the adventure. The weather wasn't perfect when we arrived which, at first, seemed rather unfortunate. The opinions about the clouds quickly changed when we found ourselves hiking up at least 500 uneven and skinny steps to get our way up the cliff side with 35 pound backpacks on! I soon realized that I am not exactly in the best shape of my life. Regardless, it felt great to be out hiking and in the outdoors again. Not to mention, the views of the sea and the mountains we were hiking were absolutely incredible. Even if you were tired and sweating the idea of what the next corner could hold always kept us going. Plus, with our group there were never a lack of picture stops so we were always somewhat rested.
Complimenting the hikes, the time we got to spend in each of the small little seaside villages will not soon be forgotten. Each village seemed to take you back about 20 or 30 years when things were more simple and life was good all of the time (at least in theory). The old square buildings shone brightly in pastel shades of yellow, pink and orange. Without exception green shutters lined every window and closelines were filled with the days laundry. The cobble stone alleys zig-zagged back and forth inbetween a plethora of small shops, gelaterias and pizza places. The locals were some of the most friendly people I have ever met, embracing the large amounts of tourism the get and eager to help out a lost traveller looking for a good lunch or the direction to the next village. I do not have anywhere near the amount of literary skill or descriptive ability to do the villages justice and I highly reccomend that anyone who reads this does a quick Google search for "Cinque Terre"- you will not be dissapointed, I promise!
Between the second and third village, we ran into a few American girls who were on spring break from Barcelona. We shared a few laughs and broke into a few verses of KC and Jojo songs along the hike. Unfortunately, when one girl from Texas Tech tried to tell us about how her school had made a remix of Soulja Boy into "Crank that Crabtree" for their famous RUNNING BACK..we could hold a serious conversation for the remander of the hike haha! It felt great to arrive at the third village towards the end of the afternoon. A long day of hiking seemed like a perfect excuse to pig out on gelato and get an authentic Italian pizza! We also made sure to grab a few bottles of cheap local wine and some Lemoncello, a thick lemon liquor, as if we needed any more assistance in passing out after a long day of strenuous hiking and laughing.
Day two of hiking was supposed to be much less strenuous than the first and we had planned on arriving in Florence by mid to late afternoon. That plan quickly changed when we ended up taking the wrong path from the 4th to the 5th village turning a 20 min hike along the coast into a 2 hour quest up a mountain. It really wouldn't have taken so long but while hiking down into a valley we came across the Sandlot of soccer fields situated 100 feet below a mountain overpass on on the side of a cliff. The field wasn't in great shape but was littered with cones, soccer balls and had two perfectly good goals that proved it had been used recently. Almost simultaneous the inner child of us all ran down into the field, dropped our packs like bags of rocks and started our attempts at playing soccer. The place was so magical, straight out of a movie - it was like the clouds opened up and a ray of sunlight shone on this little field calling us to it for a pick up game even though we are so terrible at the game that the field stands for. We quickly named the playing surface the "Field of Dreams" and spent over an hour there having shootouts and playing 2 on 2, all of us giddy with excitement. We pretended to be famous footballers, pretended to be decent and completely forgot about any of our plans to get to Florence. Like the rest of the Cinque Terre, our little moment is sort of hard to put into words but the time we spend at the "Field of Dreams" really encapsulated everything sports are supposed to be about.
Eventually we did finish the hike and caught a train to Firenza (Florence). On the way we realized we were going to be stopping through Pisa and, in the name of the stereotypical leaning tower picture, we decided to make a stop. The lady working the train told us to get off on the South Pisa stop, so we did. Immediately after stepping off the train it seemed like we had landed in one of the biggest shitholes in Italy. We knew essentially nothing about Pisa but decided that we must've been supposed to get off at Pisa Centrale. Right before we were about to hop back on the train, a random traveller from Texas informed us that we were, in fact, only about 10 minutes walk from the infamous leaning tower. Thankful that we didn't get back on the train we headed towards the tower to take 20 mintues worth of photos and be on our way. 20 minutes quickly turned into 30 and became accompanied by a great deal of rain that we had no way to get out of. We then remembered that we had a train to catch in about 6 mintues, and, after some deliberation, all took off in dead sprints back towards the train station. Dripping wet, exhausted from a half mile sprint with 30 pound backpacks and rather miserable we just made it back to the platform before the train departed for Florence! Getting out of the rain quickly changed all of our moods towards our little adventure and we all broke out in laugher, deeming our sprint the "escape from Pisa!" Another memory that will not soon be forgotten!
I am currently on an overnight ferry from Italy to Greece and can barely keep my eyes open so I will leave Florence for a future date. The story about how I got on this ferry is absolutely ridiculous itself, I can't hardly believe it! All of these things will be coming soon as I still struggle to catch up with the blog. It is surreal that today was my last day in Italy, it went so so fast!
Like always, I hope everyone is doing as well as possible with school and life in general. I'm real sad I can't make Mifflin this year so I need everyone to pitch in and drink the 20 or so beers I would've planned on consuming :) If everyone pulls together I don't think it will be a problem hehe.
Until next time, stay in touch and I will be tryign to call a bunch of people when I get back into London to do some much needed caching up!
Cheers,
Patrick
Although I had a great couple of days with random folks in Genoa, it was good to be with a gang again and headed off to the Cinque Terre National Park on the northwest coast of Italy. The park consists of cliffside paths that wind between five seperate villages that are embedded into the clifs and are about as quintessentially Italian as anything can get. I didn't really know much about the place myself but I had heard such good things that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make the hike. Our plan was to hike from the first village to the third village where we would spend a night at the hostel there and then finish the last two villages and catch a short train to Florence to continue the adventure. The weather wasn't perfect when we arrived which, at first, seemed rather unfortunate. The opinions about the clouds quickly changed when we found ourselves hiking up at least 500 uneven and skinny steps to get our way up the cliff side with 35 pound backpacks on! I soon realized that I am not exactly in the best shape of my life. Regardless, it felt great to be out hiking and in the outdoors again. Not to mention, the views of the sea and the mountains we were hiking were absolutely incredible. Even if you were tired and sweating the idea of what the next corner could hold always kept us going. Plus, with our group there were never a lack of picture stops so we were always somewhat rested.
Complimenting the hikes, the time we got to spend in each of the small little seaside villages will not soon be forgotten. Each village seemed to take you back about 20 or 30 years when things were more simple and life was good all of the time (at least in theory). The old square buildings shone brightly in pastel shades of yellow, pink and orange. Without exception green shutters lined every window and closelines were filled with the days laundry. The cobble stone alleys zig-zagged back and forth inbetween a plethora of small shops, gelaterias and pizza places. The locals were some of the most friendly people I have ever met, embracing the large amounts of tourism the get and eager to help out a lost traveller looking for a good lunch or the direction to the next village. I do not have anywhere near the amount of literary skill or descriptive ability to do the villages justice and I highly reccomend that anyone who reads this does a quick Google search for "Cinque Terre"- you will not be dissapointed, I promise!
Between the second and third village, we ran into a few American girls who were on spring break from Barcelona. We shared a few laughs and broke into a few verses of KC and Jojo songs along the hike. Unfortunately, when one girl from Texas Tech tried to tell us about how her school had made a remix of Soulja Boy into "Crank that Crabtree" for their famous RUNNING BACK..we could hold a serious conversation for the remander of the hike haha! It felt great to arrive at the third village towards the end of the afternoon. A long day of hiking seemed like a perfect excuse to pig out on gelato and get an authentic Italian pizza! We also made sure to grab a few bottles of cheap local wine and some Lemoncello, a thick lemon liquor, as if we needed any more assistance in passing out after a long day of strenuous hiking and laughing.
Day two of hiking was supposed to be much less strenuous than the first and we had planned on arriving in Florence by mid to late afternoon. That plan quickly changed when we ended up taking the wrong path from the 4th to the 5th village turning a 20 min hike along the coast into a 2 hour quest up a mountain. It really wouldn't have taken so long but while hiking down into a valley we came across the Sandlot of soccer fields situated 100 feet below a mountain overpass on on the side of a cliff. The field wasn't in great shape but was littered with cones, soccer balls and had two perfectly good goals that proved it had been used recently. Almost simultaneous the inner child of us all ran down into the field, dropped our packs like bags of rocks and started our attempts at playing soccer. The place was so magical, straight out of a movie - it was like the clouds opened up and a ray of sunlight shone on this little field calling us to it for a pick up game even though we are so terrible at the game that the field stands for. We quickly named the playing surface the "Field of Dreams" and spent over an hour there having shootouts and playing 2 on 2, all of us giddy with excitement. We pretended to be famous footballers, pretended to be decent and completely forgot about any of our plans to get to Florence. Like the rest of the Cinque Terre, our little moment is sort of hard to put into words but the time we spend at the "Field of Dreams" really encapsulated everything sports are supposed to be about.
Eventually we did finish the hike and caught a train to Firenza (Florence). On the way we realized we were going to be stopping through Pisa and, in the name of the stereotypical leaning tower picture, we decided to make a stop. The lady working the train told us to get off on the South Pisa stop, so we did. Immediately after stepping off the train it seemed like we had landed in one of the biggest shitholes in Italy. We knew essentially nothing about Pisa but decided that we must've been supposed to get off at Pisa Centrale. Right before we were about to hop back on the train, a random traveller from Texas informed us that we were, in fact, only about 10 minutes walk from the infamous leaning tower. Thankful that we didn't get back on the train we headed towards the tower to take 20 mintues worth of photos and be on our way. 20 minutes quickly turned into 30 and became accompanied by a great deal of rain that we had no way to get out of. We then remembered that we had a train to catch in about 6 mintues, and, after some deliberation, all took off in dead sprints back towards the train station. Dripping wet, exhausted from a half mile sprint with 30 pound backpacks and rather miserable we just made it back to the platform before the train departed for Florence! Getting out of the rain quickly changed all of our moods towards our little adventure and we all broke out in laugher, deeming our sprint the "escape from Pisa!" Another memory that will not soon be forgotten!
I am currently on an overnight ferry from Italy to Greece and can barely keep my eyes open so I will leave Florence for a future date. The story about how I got on this ferry is absolutely ridiculous itself, I can't hardly believe it! All of these things will be coming soon as I still struggle to catch up with the blog. It is surreal that today was my last day in Italy, it went so so fast!
Like always, I hope everyone is doing as well as possible with school and life in general. I'm real sad I can't make Mifflin this year so I need everyone to pitch in and drink the 20 or so beers I would've planned on consuming :) If everyone pulls together I don't think it will be a problem hehe.
Until next time, stay in touch and I will be tryign to call a bunch of people when I get back into London to do some much needed caching up!
Cheers,
Patrick
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Italian Adventure Begins - A few days in Genoa
Greetings from Italy! Taking it back a few weeks to the beginning of my journey as I attempt to keep up with this.
Bright and early Tuesday morning I left London and headed to the airport to begin my 20 day adventure in Italy/Greece. I decided to leave before the guys I was with in London because by going on Tuesday afternoon instead of Friday my plane ticket to Genoa costed $12 instead of about $100. I figured a few days to relax in Italy couldn't possibly be bad. Having left a slow and steady rain, I couldn't wait to touch down on the Western Italian coastal city of Genoa, a major port city with, as I would later find out, a great deal of history. Unfortunately I was greeted by worse weather than when I left - just my luck!. Not only did I have to find my way to the hostel in the pouring rain but there was a midly serious thunderstorm for the first 3 hours I was there so I found myself stuck inside trying to keep myself busy. Fortunately MTV had some songs in English mixed in with the Italian versions of South Park and Scrubs. The sun eventually came out giving me some time to explore the rolling hills of the beautiful city of Genoa. With a population of 630,000 the city runs along a few miles of coast line and then is terraced along the hillside effectively fitting the city's inhabitants into a relatively small space. I really had no expectactions when I arrived so to see Genoa's beautiful pastel buildings and craggy coastline made me really excited to explore the next day.
While lying in bed reading in my hostel the first night, a slightly older guy came in for the evening who was stopping in Genoa on his way around Italy. We got to talking a bit and decided that we would walk our way down the winding roads towards the city center together in the morning. We winded our ways in an out of Genoa's quintessentially Italian alley ways, shared stories and talked about many rather significant issues. Turns out he was born in a very Catholic, Pleasantville-like, town in central Pennslyvania before moving to Mexico with his parents at a young age. He went to college in Mexico and then moved to Morocco where he has been teaching English for quite some time and converted religions to Islam in order to marry his wife of nine years. We were so busy talking and exploring the historic sites of Genoa that we didn't even exchange names until we hiked around for 6 hours! From religion to politics, international relations, current events and Wisconsin demographics we really talked about every topic under the sun. Turns out Nathan had been to about 70 countries and over 600 cities in his lifetime - absolutely incredible guy to spend a day with. I really learned a lot and expanded my horizons during our hike south along the Italian coast which ended up going for 12 hours and over 15 miles before we decided to take a train home. We really just kept going on the coast and never once failed to be astonished by the views we would come across. All in all, we hiked out of Genoa's city limits and to 3 other villages. Although I don't always like travelling alone, meeting cool people and doing these sort of thigns really makes me enjoy it!
Nathan and I exchanged email addresses and the next morning he was gone before I got up. Fortunately for me I found an equally interesting traveller from South Africa named Sean to venture with the next day. He had just graduated from a college a few hours west of Cape Town with a degree in business and was looking to take a few months off before heading into the working world. He was making a stop in Genoa on his way to a major port city in the south of Spain where he was looking to work on a yacht for the summer. What an incredibly cool way to spend a summer galavanting around on a multi-million dollar private yacht with all of your expenses paid and a free pass to see the world! We spent some of the day looking around the harbor so Sean could try to find a boat his friend was working on that he thought docked in Genoa the previous day. To no avail we eventually ended up looking at some parts of the city that Nathan and I had skipped the previous day to venture down the coast. Just like the day before, we talked about anything and everything under the sun and used each other as direct sources for information about each others' cultures. Having studied South Africa a bit, I always find it enjoyable to get "inside information" so to speak on the current political and socioeconomic situations. After finding a cheap lunch at a local indoor market that involved half a chicken and a roll to make a gigantic chicken sandwhich for 3 Euro, we went back up to the hostel for a nap so we could go see if there was any nightlife on a Thursday in Genoa. There most definitely was not and we ended up wandering around looking for a cheap pizza before catching a bus back up to the hostel. The bus ride home ended up getting invaded by a group of 40 or so secondary school students from Lisbon who were on their way to Florence and Rome for an art history trip. Must be a hell of a way to learn to actually go see the works of Titan, da Vinci, Michelangelo etc. instead of just having to ponder them in a text book.
Finally on my third day in Genoa the sun decided to come out and I headed to the harbor to get a tan before the rest of the gang from London got into town for the day. I used my previous few days knowledge to give them a tour of the notable parts of the city before we all headed to our bed and breakfast early so we could get up and catch an 8 o'clock train to the our next stop, the Cinque Terre National Park for two days of hiking the Italian Riveria! It was good to see familiar faces again but I had an amazing time in Genoa thanks to Nathan and Sean. Yet another series of eye opening experiences thanks to travelling. I may never see either of those guys again but I will definitely hold on to all of the things I learned from the conversations. What a wonderful beginning to my Italian adventure :)
Still trying to catch up with these posts and am a few cities behind but I am trying my best for those who are interested in what I am doing. I am also trying to find time to post pictures on Fbook soon because I really can't properly describe the grandeur of a lot of these places properly with words.
I hope everyone is adjusting back to the grind of school after SB and is getting ready for the home stretch...I can't believe that we will be seniors next year! Anyways, keep in touch and I'll try to reconnect with everyone when the travels slow down in a week or two. Until then I am currently on a train to Rome and will be headed to Athens on Tuesday I believe :)
Stay in touch and more will come in the near future :) Sorry for grammar mistakes!
Cheers,
Patrick
Bright and early Tuesday morning I left London and headed to the airport to begin my 20 day adventure in Italy/Greece. I decided to leave before the guys I was with in London because by going on Tuesday afternoon instead of Friday my plane ticket to Genoa costed $12 instead of about $100. I figured a few days to relax in Italy couldn't possibly be bad. Having left a slow and steady rain, I couldn't wait to touch down on the Western Italian coastal city of Genoa, a major port city with, as I would later find out, a great deal of history. Unfortunately I was greeted by worse weather than when I left - just my luck!. Not only did I have to find my way to the hostel in the pouring rain but there was a midly serious thunderstorm for the first 3 hours I was there so I found myself stuck inside trying to keep myself busy. Fortunately MTV had some songs in English mixed in with the Italian versions of South Park and Scrubs. The sun eventually came out giving me some time to explore the rolling hills of the beautiful city of Genoa. With a population of 630,000 the city runs along a few miles of coast line and then is terraced along the hillside effectively fitting the city's inhabitants into a relatively small space. I really had no expectactions when I arrived so to see Genoa's beautiful pastel buildings and craggy coastline made me really excited to explore the next day.
While lying in bed reading in my hostel the first night, a slightly older guy came in for the evening who was stopping in Genoa on his way around Italy. We got to talking a bit and decided that we would walk our way down the winding roads towards the city center together in the morning. We winded our ways in an out of Genoa's quintessentially Italian alley ways, shared stories and talked about many rather significant issues. Turns out he was born in a very Catholic, Pleasantville-like, town in central Pennslyvania before moving to Mexico with his parents at a young age. He went to college in Mexico and then moved to Morocco where he has been teaching English for quite some time and converted religions to Islam in order to marry his wife of nine years. We were so busy talking and exploring the historic sites of Genoa that we didn't even exchange names until we hiked around for 6 hours! From religion to politics, international relations, current events and Wisconsin demographics we really talked about every topic under the sun. Turns out Nathan had been to about 70 countries and over 600 cities in his lifetime - absolutely incredible guy to spend a day with. I really learned a lot and expanded my horizons during our hike south along the Italian coast which ended up going for 12 hours and over 15 miles before we decided to take a train home. We really just kept going on the coast and never once failed to be astonished by the views we would come across. All in all, we hiked out of Genoa's city limits and to 3 other villages. Although I don't always like travelling alone, meeting cool people and doing these sort of thigns really makes me enjoy it!
Nathan and I exchanged email addresses and the next morning he was gone before I got up. Fortunately for me I found an equally interesting traveller from South Africa named Sean to venture with the next day. He had just graduated from a college a few hours west of Cape Town with a degree in business and was looking to take a few months off before heading into the working world. He was making a stop in Genoa on his way to a major port city in the south of Spain where he was looking to work on a yacht for the summer. What an incredibly cool way to spend a summer galavanting around on a multi-million dollar private yacht with all of your expenses paid and a free pass to see the world! We spent some of the day looking around the harbor so Sean could try to find a boat his friend was working on that he thought docked in Genoa the previous day. To no avail we eventually ended up looking at some parts of the city that Nathan and I had skipped the previous day to venture down the coast. Just like the day before, we talked about anything and everything under the sun and used each other as direct sources for information about each others' cultures. Having studied South Africa a bit, I always find it enjoyable to get "inside information" so to speak on the current political and socioeconomic situations. After finding a cheap lunch at a local indoor market that involved half a chicken and a roll to make a gigantic chicken sandwhich for 3 Euro, we went back up to the hostel for a nap so we could go see if there was any nightlife on a Thursday in Genoa. There most definitely was not and we ended up wandering around looking for a cheap pizza before catching a bus back up to the hostel. The bus ride home ended up getting invaded by a group of 40 or so secondary school students from Lisbon who were on their way to Florence and Rome for an art history trip. Must be a hell of a way to learn to actually go see the works of Titan, da Vinci, Michelangelo etc. instead of just having to ponder them in a text book.
Finally on my third day in Genoa the sun decided to come out and I headed to the harbor to get a tan before the rest of the gang from London got into town for the day. I used my previous few days knowledge to give them a tour of the notable parts of the city before we all headed to our bed and breakfast early so we could get up and catch an 8 o'clock train to the our next stop, the Cinque Terre National Park for two days of hiking the Italian Riveria! It was good to see familiar faces again but I had an amazing time in Genoa thanks to Nathan and Sean. Yet another series of eye opening experiences thanks to travelling. I may never see either of those guys again but I will definitely hold on to all of the things I learned from the conversations. What a wonderful beginning to my Italian adventure :)
Still trying to catch up with these posts and am a few cities behind but I am trying my best for those who are interested in what I am doing. I am also trying to find time to post pictures on Fbook soon because I really can't properly describe the grandeur of a lot of these places properly with words.
I hope everyone is adjusting back to the grind of school after SB and is getting ready for the home stretch...I can't believe that we will be seniors next year! Anyways, keep in touch and I'll try to reconnect with everyone when the travels slow down in a week or two. Until then I am currently on a train to Rome and will be headed to Athens on Tuesday I believe :)
Stay in touch and more will come in the near future :) Sorry for grammar mistakes!
Cheers,
Patrick
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Canvey Island and London Monopoly Pub Crawl!
Bonjourno!
Admittedly I have a little catching up to do on reporting my adventures to the world (better known as the 20 people who will read this) so I am going to go backwards a few weeks to the beginning of my 5 week spring break now that I have a bit of time on the train from Florence to Naples.
When you dont really have any school work on a weekly basis, you don't get quite as excited or antsy for breaks as you do when the work keeps piling up but, nonetheless, I couldn't wait for Easter holiday to start so I could head to my mate Grant's house on Canvey Island in the south of England. It was absolutely wonderful to be free of dorm style living and go to a place with couches, real beds, real food, 40 inch flatscreen TVs and, crucially, ESPN America! Despite being in England and experiencing new forms of culture and sport I ccould not help but be overjoyed that I could finally catch some of the NCAA tournament on something better than a shitty stream to my laptop. For me, it was also very interesting to be able to make a rough comparison of family structure, house size, neighborhood layout etc.. between what I am used to in the U.S. and someone in England. Studying abroad does a great deal to expand your horizons but for the most part you are either at university or travelling so you don't get a chance to see what day to day home life is like. For example, having Grant take me to the all-boys grammar school he attended and show me through the halls filled with kids in full suits really opened up my eyes to a way of doing things vastly different from the highschool experience that I had and that shaped who I am. Such differences in the underlying structure of society really explain some of the differences between UK and US cultures and people which are much, much different than most people assume just because we speak the same language. To be honest, the language is different in many more ways that most would think. There have been plenty of times where I have not understood a word of what someone was telling me in plain English!
Side Note: The 40 year old man across from me on the train wistles and grabs his glasses every time a girl walks by so that he can get a better view of her when she passes. He also just winked at me when a rather attracitve young woman walked by...awkward. Got to love that Italian 'charm.'
Grant introduced me to all his friends the evening we arrived and the next couple of days were filled with a grand tour of Canvey Island. All of the locals insisted that it really wasn't that cool, which I suppose is natural to think of where you come from. From my pespective, I thought it was pretty remarkable to be on a seaside island and experience all of the things that they have grown accustomed to doing every day. I suppose that is the joy of traveling. It helps you fight the complacency we all develop towards the places where we live, even if those places are spectacular in themselves. Aside from all of the places I am getting to see, people I'm meeting and things that I'm doing, one of the biggest benefits of studying abroad lies in its ability to alter my perspetive on the world and everythign that I have known for the last 20 years. I don't know how long the new found worldview will last once I get back into a routine but I am certain that I will never see all of the things I used to take for granted quite the same. I digress.
After showing me a good night out as well as the seaside towns of Leigh-on-sea and Southend, it felt like my five days at the Johnson residence flew by and I was off to London to spend some time with the Wisconsin crew before heading off to Italy/Greece for 20 days. London never fails to be exciting and, for whatever reason, the city really makes you feel at home and a part of it regardless of where you are from or who you are. It might be the internationalism of the city in general - there have been many times that I remember being on the tube and being surrounded by ten or twenty people, none of which were speaking English to each other. Another reason for the general comfort may be the increasing number of people I know in the city and can hang around. There are Wisconsin kids at multiple London Uni's and now my friends from Warwick who live there or near by and now some of Grant's friends who live and work there. In a really incredible small world experience I actually ran into a kid from Lithuania who I play on the basketball team with on the tube in rush hour. Its hard to fathom the chances of me being on the same line, at the same time and getting in the exact car as he was..crazy!
Upon my arrival the lot of us went to the car park across the street from the apartment and played a spontaneous game of pick-up soccer using dumpsters as goals in between rows of cars. It is safe to say that we are really a disgrace to the game and all of its glory but we had an amazing time - ended up playing for 2 hours and even got a English kid who was walkign by to join us. Anyways, my days in London inolved me doing some more exploring of things I hadn't had time to see in past visits. I also finally gave in and bought myself a fashionable coat. I could no longer stand feeling like an outcast in every city I was in due to my lack of a proper attire. Plus it was half-off thanks to an 'end of season' sale! I had to admit it but I am doing a bit of conforming to European fashion - I now have a button up coat, some adidas sneakers, a array of scarves, a few skinny ties and aviators to top it all off. I'm not sure how I feel about it...
On Saturday, the whole crew banded together for what would be one of the most epic day drinking episodes I have ever partaken in. The event - Monopoly Pub Crawl. To give a little background, the idea revolves around the original Monopoly board game which uses streets of London instead of the American version. The goal is to go to and get a drink at a pub on every of the 26 streets. It may sound simple but given the geography and that pubs are only open from 11 to 11, it actually must be a well planned and thought out undertaking since time only allows for about 10 minutes per pub (you have to visit two per hour including transportation time between them). We left at 10:30am dressed in silly looking hats determined to finish all 26. 12 hours and the equivalent of just over 20 beers later we were the last people to be served at pub number twenty-six before it closed! We were on schedule earlier in the crawl but as the drunkness set in and some McDonalds runs had to be factored in I think it is needless to say that we got a bit off track as the day progressed. One of the more fun days I have had in a while. I insist that we all need to organize a Madison version for welcome week this year now that we are all 21!
Like with my time on Canvey Island, the days in London went by much too fast and before I knew it, Tuesday morning rolled around and I hopped on my $12 Ryan Air flight to Genoa, Italy to hang out for a few days before the whole gang showed up on Friday. Reports on my adventures with an English teacher in Morrocco, a South African graduate looking for summer work on a Yacht, hiking in the Cinque Terre National Park and Florence in the next few days. I'll try to keep this as current as possible and check Fbook for pics if your interested :)
I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break and Easter and, like always, stay in touch!
Cheers,
Patrick
Admittedly I have a little catching up to do on reporting my adventures to the world (better known as the 20 people who will read this) so I am going to go backwards a few weeks to the beginning of my 5 week spring break now that I have a bit of time on the train from Florence to Naples.
When you dont really have any school work on a weekly basis, you don't get quite as excited or antsy for breaks as you do when the work keeps piling up but, nonetheless, I couldn't wait for Easter holiday to start so I could head to my mate Grant's house on Canvey Island in the south of England. It was absolutely wonderful to be free of dorm style living and go to a place with couches, real beds, real food, 40 inch flatscreen TVs and, crucially, ESPN America! Despite being in England and experiencing new forms of culture and sport I ccould not help but be overjoyed that I could finally catch some of the NCAA tournament on something better than a shitty stream to my laptop. For me, it was also very interesting to be able to make a rough comparison of family structure, house size, neighborhood layout etc.. between what I am used to in the U.S. and someone in England. Studying abroad does a great deal to expand your horizons but for the most part you are either at university or travelling so you don't get a chance to see what day to day home life is like. For example, having Grant take me to the all-boys grammar school he attended and show me through the halls filled with kids in full suits really opened up my eyes to a way of doing things vastly different from the highschool experience that I had and that shaped who I am. Such differences in the underlying structure of society really explain some of the differences between UK and US cultures and people which are much, much different than most people assume just because we speak the same language. To be honest, the language is different in many more ways that most would think. There have been plenty of times where I have not understood a word of what someone was telling me in plain English!
Side Note: The 40 year old man across from me on the train wistles and grabs his glasses every time a girl walks by so that he can get a better view of her when she passes. He also just winked at me when a rather attracitve young woman walked by...awkward. Got to love that Italian 'charm.'
Grant introduced me to all his friends the evening we arrived and the next couple of days were filled with a grand tour of Canvey Island. All of the locals insisted that it really wasn't that cool, which I suppose is natural to think of where you come from. From my pespective, I thought it was pretty remarkable to be on a seaside island and experience all of the things that they have grown accustomed to doing every day. I suppose that is the joy of traveling. It helps you fight the complacency we all develop towards the places where we live, even if those places are spectacular in themselves. Aside from all of the places I am getting to see, people I'm meeting and things that I'm doing, one of the biggest benefits of studying abroad lies in its ability to alter my perspetive on the world and everythign that I have known for the last 20 years. I don't know how long the new found worldview will last once I get back into a routine but I am certain that I will never see all of the things I used to take for granted quite the same. I digress.
After showing me a good night out as well as the seaside towns of Leigh-on-sea and Southend, it felt like my five days at the Johnson residence flew by and I was off to London to spend some time with the Wisconsin crew before heading off to Italy/Greece for 20 days. London never fails to be exciting and, for whatever reason, the city really makes you feel at home and a part of it regardless of where you are from or who you are. It might be the internationalism of the city in general - there have been many times that I remember being on the tube and being surrounded by ten or twenty people, none of which were speaking English to each other. Another reason for the general comfort may be the increasing number of people I know in the city and can hang around. There are Wisconsin kids at multiple London Uni's and now my friends from Warwick who live there or near by and now some of Grant's friends who live and work there. In a really incredible small world experience I actually ran into a kid from Lithuania who I play on the basketball team with on the tube in rush hour. Its hard to fathom the chances of me being on the same line, at the same time and getting in the exact car as he was..crazy!
Upon my arrival the lot of us went to the car park across the street from the apartment and played a spontaneous game of pick-up soccer using dumpsters as goals in between rows of cars. It is safe to say that we are really a disgrace to the game and all of its glory but we had an amazing time - ended up playing for 2 hours and even got a English kid who was walkign by to join us. Anyways, my days in London inolved me doing some more exploring of things I hadn't had time to see in past visits. I also finally gave in and bought myself a fashionable coat. I could no longer stand feeling like an outcast in every city I was in due to my lack of a proper attire. Plus it was half-off thanks to an 'end of season' sale! I had to admit it but I am doing a bit of conforming to European fashion - I now have a button up coat, some adidas sneakers, a array of scarves, a few skinny ties and aviators to top it all off. I'm not sure how I feel about it...
On Saturday, the whole crew banded together for what would be one of the most epic day drinking episodes I have ever partaken in. The event - Monopoly Pub Crawl. To give a little background, the idea revolves around the original Monopoly board game which uses streets of London instead of the American version. The goal is to go to and get a drink at a pub on every of the 26 streets. It may sound simple but given the geography and that pubs are only open from 11 to 11, it actually must be a well planned and thought out undertaking since time only allows for about 10 minutes per pub (you have to visit two per hour including transportation time between them). We left at 10:30am dressed in silly looking hats determined to finish all 26. 12 hours and the equivalent of just over 20 beers later we were the last people to be served at pub number twenty-six before it closed! We were on schedule earlier in the crawl but as the drunkness set in and some McDonalds runs had to be factored in I think it is needless to say that we got a bit off track as the day progressed. One of the more fun days I have had in a while. I insist that we all need to organize a Madison version for welcome week this year now that we are all 21!
Like with my time on Canvey Island, the days in London went by much too fast and before I knew it, Tuesday morning rolled around and I hopped on my $12 Ryan Air flight to Genoa, Italy to hang out for a few days before the whole gang showed up on Friday. Reports on my adventures with an English teacher in Morrocco, a South African graduate looking for summer work on a Yacht, hiking in the Cinque Terre National Park and Florence in the next few days. I'll try to keep this as current as possible and check Fbook for pics if your interested :)
I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break and Easter and, like always, stay in touch!
Cheers,
Patrick
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
My College Basketball Career!
Well it has been quite some time since I have posted anything but it hasn't been for lack of excitement, more just the lack of desire to write a blog entry on top of the other papers I have been writing. Although I have been off from Uni for just over a week now for my 5 week Easter holiday, things did pick up school wise a bit while I was back at Warwick. The work load is still significantly less than any usual week at Madison but when you get really used to doing next to nothing it gets even harder to do anything at all when assignments become due. LIke normal I procrastinated the two things I had to do much longer than I should have.
Aside from school, the weather finally started to get nicer so I took an adventure into the campus town of Royal Lemington Spa for an afternoon with my mate Will just to do some exploring and see what it was all about. It is a really wonderful small town and lacks any of the visual attrocities that coincide with the stereotypical industrialized British town like Coventry. The main road is lined with beautiful white stone buildings filled with a wide variety of shops and cafes and adorned with exquisite parks and green spaces. Unlike Coventry or the University of Warwick campus, Lemington has a great deal of character and delightful little places to go and hang out for an afternoon; I imagine I will spend quite a bit of time there when it becomes time to study for exams in May and am rather dissapointed in myself I didn't make it over there sooner.
Another notable event that I have been meaning to write about for quite some time was the Warwick Ale Festival. In summary, it consisted of a large room with over 100 different kinds of ales, ciders and wines to be had and 4 hours to get as drunk as possible. To top it all off, there was an absolutely absurd musical act that consisted of a group of older people dressed as pirates playing random instruments like the accordian, banjo etc.., and singing ridiculous songs about masturbating a kangaroo among other topics. It reminded me a lot of the freecreditreport.com commercials except that it was a great deal more absurd. It was really cool to be able to try different ales brewed from across the UK and expand my horizons even further when it comes to beer drinking. However, after drinking everything from cider and lighter ales to expresso stouts (darker than Guinness) -not to mention the rather large amount of beer that was consumed in general - my stomach had definitely felt better . The next morning proved to be a struggle as well since I forgot to drink any water or eat anything the night before. If I would've had any classes that day I wouldve skipped them for sure!
One of my most rewarding experiences thus far at Warwick has been my chance to play with the university basketball team! One day while shooting around and playing a worthless game of 3 on 3 against some very untalented Asains, I was approached while taking off my shoes by another student who introduced himself as Tom. He said he saw me playing from the balcony and that, if I could, I should come practice with the basketball team the following day. I smiled and agreed, overjoyed in the fact that it was the first time I had been recruited for anything in my life. Practice the next day was a great deal of fun; it was good to play with some kids who were competent again. There were some obvious differences in playing styles between what I consider good basketball and what the others did but I thought it was really cool to see the contrast between different cultures. Probably my favorite part about the opportunity to play is that, since there are very few English guys on the team due to the general disdain for the sport in this country, I have gotten the chance to befriend people from all over the world: Canada, China, Belgium, Lithuania, Romania, Norway and Greece. Just talking to people from different places really opens your horizons and facilitates more learning than you can learn in a classroom. Not to mention, it was wonderful to finally be able to talk basketball again, especially during March even though most admitted they had never really watched much college basketball since it is never played in Europe. Basketball provided a common subject for all of us to bond and I have made really good friends with the kids from the team.
It should probably be noted how different university athletics are in Europe as opposed to the States, otherwise a lot of this might sound pretty obscene. First, they really aren't much of a big deal at all; maybe 20 or 30 people will go to watch a Uni sporting event on any given day. Second, they are entirely less formal; practices are somewhat optional and there is a general lack of an actual coach. They are much more similar to intramurals than anything. In this context, it makes a little more sense that I would be able to join a team 3/4 of the way through their season. Unfortunately, by the time I had gone to practice, the team only had a few games left but, with a little handiwork, I was able to suit up for the last game of the year against Warwick's rival team from Coventry University. Who knew that after giving up on my dream of playing college basketball 5 years ago due to general lack of athletic ability and the decreasing dedication to become good enough at anything to stand a chance that I, Patrick Lueck, would suit up as an official college basketball player for 1 game! Don't get me wrong, the game was probably less intense than the average SERF pick-up game but, nonetheless, it was cool to put on a uniform, lace up the Nikes, and go play an official game. The first half was somewhat embarassing. I think I was about 0-4 with 2 points from freethrows. Fortunately, I asserted my role as the proverbial 'defensive stopper' so I was at least contributing somewhat to our halftime lead by guarding their best player. I redeemed myself as an American in the second half scoring 15 or so points and grabbing about 5 steals on route to a Warwick victory! Now when I'm old and reminiscing about my younger years I can tell everyone that I played college ball and, on my career, averaged about 16 points, 8 rebounds and 5 steals a game - clearly statistics that warrant the retirement of my jersey in the rafters of the Warwick University gymnasium. Then I can just skillfully change the subject, no one ever has to know I only played 1 game.
A few days after the game, I had to pack up all of my things and get ready to live for 5 weeks out of an oversized backpack. My first adventure was to my mate Grant's house on Canvey Island in the south of England and then to London for a few rowdy days with the Wisconsin crew. I will post something about these in the next few days because they are definitely noteworthy. Currently, I am sitting in London Stansted Airport waiting for my flight to Genoa for my 22 day adventure around Italy and Greece with some friends from London who are meeting me in Genoa on Friday. Since the plane ticket on a Tuesday was only $12 and it was well over $100 on Friday, I figured I'd just go early and enjoy the sunshine in the Italian Riviera for a few days and see if I can get a bit of color!
I hope everyone is enjoying spring break in Florida and wherever else people's adventures have taken them. Weather in the states seem to be perfect lately so I don't doubt that everyone is partying up a storm and showing the world how the midwest does things :) Stay tuned for more soon.
Cheers,
Patrick :)
P.S. I didn't have spell check for this one so please excuse any poor grammar :p
Aside from school, the weather finally started to get nicer so I took an adventure into the campus town of Royal Lemington Spa for an afternoon with my mate Will just to do some exploring and see what it was all about. It is a really wonderful small town and lacks any of the visual attrocities that coincide with the stereotypical industrialized British town like Coventry. The main road is lined with beautiful white stone buildings filled with a wide variety of shops and cafes and adorned with exquisite parks and green spaces. Unlike Coventry or the University of Warwick campus, Lemington has a great deal of character and delightful little places to go and hang out for an afternoon; I imagine I will spend quite a bit of time there when it becomes time to study for exams in May and am rather dissapointed in myself I didn't make it over there sooner.
Another notable event that I have been meaning to write about for quite some time was the Warwick Ale Festival. In summary, it consisted of a large room with over 100 different kinds of ales, ciders and wines to be had and 4 hours to get as drunk as possible. To top it all off, there was an absolutely absurd musical act that consisted of a group of older people dressed as pirates playing random instruments like the accordian, banjo etc.., and singing ridiculous songs about masturbating a kangaroo among other topics. It reminded me a lot of the freecreditreport.com commercials except that it was a great deal more absurd. It was really cool to be able to try different ales brewed from across the UK and expand my horizons even further when it comes to beer drinking. However, after drinking everything from cider and lighter ales to expresso stouts (darker than Guinness) -not to mention the rather large amount of beer that was consumed in general - my stomach had definitely felt better . The next morning proved to be a struggle as well since I forgot to drink any water or eat anything the night before. If I would've had any classes that day I wouldve skipped them for sure!
One of my most rewarding experiences thus far at Warwick has been my chance to play with the university basketball team! One day while shooting around and playing a worthless game of 3 on 3 against some very untalented Asains, I was approached while taking off my shoes by another student who introduced himself as Tom. He said he saw me playing from the balcony and that, if I could, I should come practice with the basketball team the following day. I smiled and agreed, overjoyed in the fact that it was the first time I had been recruited for anything in my life. Practice the next day was a great deal of fun; it was good to play with some kids who were competent again. There were some obvious differences in playing styles between what I consider good basketball and what the others did but I thought it was really cool to see the contrast between different cultures. Probably my favorite part about the opportunity to play is that, since there are very few English guys on the team due to the general disdain for the sport in this country, I have gotten the chance to befriend people from all over the world: Canada, China, Belgium, Lithuania, Romania, Norway and Greece. Just talking to people from different places really opens your horizons and facilitates more learning than you can learn in a classroom. Not to mention, it was wonderful to finally be able to talk basketball again, especially during March even though most admitted they had never really watched much college basketball since it is never played in Europe. Basketball provided a common subject for all of us to bond and I have made really good friends with the kids from the team.
It should probably be noted how different university athletics are in Europe as opposed to the States, otherwise a lot of this might sound pretty obscene. First, they really aren't much of a big deal at all; maybe 20 or 30 people will go to watch a Uni sporting event on any given day. Second, they are entirely less formal; practices are somewhat optional and there is a general lack of an actual coach. They are much more similar to intramurals than anything. In this context, it makes a little more sense that I would be able to join a team 3/4 of the way through their season. Unfortunately, by the time I had gone to practice, the team only had a few games left but, with a little handiwork, I was able to suit up for the last game of the year against Warwick's rival team from Coventry University. Who knew that after giving up on my dream of playing college basketball 5 years ago due to general lack of athletic ability and the decreasing dedication to become good enough at anything to stand a chance that I, Patrick Lueck, would suit up as an official college basketball player for 1 game! Don't get me wrong, the game was probably less intense than the average SERF pick-up game but, nonetheless, it was cool to put on a uniform, lace up the Nikes, and go play an official game. The first half was somewhat embarassing. I think I was about 0-4 with 2 points from freethrows. Fortunately, I asserted my role as the proverbial 'defensive stopper' so I was at least contributing somewhat to our halftime lead by guarding their best player. I redeemed myself as an American in the second half scoring 15 or so points and grabbing about 5 steals on route to a Warwick victory! Now when I'm old and reminiscing about my younger years I can tell everyone that I played college ball and, on my career, averaged about 16 points, 8 rebounds and 5 steals a game - clearly statistics that warrant the retirement of my jersey in the rafters of the Warwick University gymnasium. Then I can just skillfully change the subject, no one ever has to know I only played 1 game.
A few days after the game, I had to pack up all of my things and get ready to live for 5 weeks out of an oversized backpack. My first adventure was to my mate Grant's house on Canvey Island in the south of England and then to London for a few rowdy days with the Wisconsin crew. I will post something about these in the next few days because they are definitely noteworthy. Currently, I am sitting in London Stansted Airport waiting for my flight to Genoa for my 22 day adventure around Italy and Greece with some friends from London who are meeting me in Genoa on Friday. Since the plane ticket on a Tuesday was only $12 and it was well over $100 on Friday, I figured I'd just go early and enjoy the sunshine in the Italian Riviera for a few days and see if I can get a bit of color!
I hope everyone is enjoying spring break in Florida and wherever else people's adventures have taken them. Weather in the states seem to be perfect lately so I don't doubt that everyone is partying up a storm and showing the world how the midwest does things :) Stay tuned for more soon.
Cheers,
Patrick :)
P.S. I didn't have spell check for this one so please excuse any poor grammar :p
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Prost (cheers) to Amsterdam and the Netherlands!
Normally I start these off in a quintessentially cliché fashion by saying 'hello' in the local language of wherever it is that I am venturing to but since I don’t understand a word of Dutch, I'll save everyone the trouble. It should probably also be noted that some of the details people are interested will be left out of these post for personal liability reasons haha.
Like usual, my international journey started in London the night before. I was completely delighted to be asked directions, not once, but twice from people trying to get around in London while I was doing some evening exploring of my own. I don't think I look any less American than I did 2 months ago but maybe I give off a more European vibe now? And if that is the case, I'm not entirely sure it is a good thing? In typical fashion I overestimated the amount of time it would take me to take the tube to the airport and get checked in so I had a few hours to kill at Heathrow. I did get the chance to share a nice conversation with an 86 year old guy headed to his home on the outskirts of London after his ballroom dancing class haha...old people are always real fun to chat up. I spent the short flight to Amsterdam sitting next to a guy reading Twilight so I just decided to take a nap since I didn't think we would have a whole lot in common. I think that any male that can legitimately participate in a Jacob/Edward conversation should probably take a look at what he is doing with his life. Coincidently, I found myself sitting next to a few girls from the states on the train from the airport to Central station and there was even one from Madison! I was about to introduce myself until I listened to them talk and came to realize that it was the most stereotypical coastie and psuedo-coastie (the bad half of the north-side Chicagoans) crowd and didn't really want to associate myself with such people. The most coastie of them all from Philly even had a lisp (not to be mean but I just couldn’t help but laugh). One of the funniest conversations I have ever overheard in my life; I just kept my mouth shut and pretended to not understand what they were saying in order to avoid interaction.
After figuring out that sketchy little back alleys are actually main roads, I managed to find my hostel where, as planned, Brandon Cibulka was awaiting my arrival. The concept of meeting up with a friendly face in cities I never thought I'd set foot in makes me smile every time. I must admit that the hostel was not at all like I expected. They had a very cool bar area, an incredible playlist, and a very eccentric lot which made hanging out with a beer and bobbing your head to some tunes incredibly enjoyable. Happy hour and 1 Euro Yager shots also did their part in enhancing the atmosphere. Naturally, Brandon and I immediately did what any pair of Americans visiting Amsterdam would do. Think real hard, I bet you can guess! After dark, we did the next thing anybody visiting Amsterdam would do: go exploring in the infamous 'Red Light District!' The district is actually marked by red lights and has a faint red glow in the evening, it isn't just a name. I really don't know how to properly describe walking around amidst a hub of legal prostitution and having random girls motion for you to come towards their window. The only reactions Brandon and I ever mustered were fits of laughter. The weirdness of walking around is trumped 100x when you actually see someone negotiating with one of the nice young ladies, stepping inside her glass door and closing the curtain. Ridiculous! We learned later in a guided walking tour of Amsterdam that all of the girls are 'entrepreneurs' for lack of a better turn and rent out their windows for 60 Euros a night and then have to 'work' to pay the bills and make a living. Arguably the most famous church in Amsterdam is located in the Red Light District along with a kindergarten - an interesting combination of industries I'd say! It’s even stranger to contemplate the idea that real estate in the area is very valuable and that people actually live there.
The next day we had to change hostels for Friday and Saturday night and meet up with a few kids from Brandon's program in Barcelona. Our hostel for Friday and Saturday was a 20/30 minute walk outside of the city center so it gave us a chance to see what kind of a city Amsterdam really is. It is a very beautiful place with semi-circular canals that run parallel to each other from Central Station. Streets then dissect the canals like rays of sunshine extending outward from the Station. It was immensely confusing at first, but after a few days the organization began to make sense and the system as a whole made it pretty easy to get around. I, like most people, did not really think of Amsterdam as a proper city before I arrived. Instead, one only ponders the experience and ridiculousness. For that reason, I think it is necessary to at least attempt to do the beautiful, quaint and surprisingly peaceful place some justice. Lining every canal and major street, three to four story town house style buildings jut out from the cobble stone streets. Each row of buildings is somewhat symmetric yet every individual building has a distinctive charm reminiscent of the 18th or 19th century when the majority of them were built. On main roads -which themselves are hardly roads the way we consider them- the bottom floors of all of the structures contain a very trendy assortment of designer shops. I was perhaps most amazed by the utter amazingness of the sneakers offered; I venture to say that Amsterdam is the world capital of awesome variations of popular shoes. No doubt that the brick-laden streets of Amsterdam the place where all of the famous American rappers get their 'fresh new kicks.' There are essentially no automobiles on any of the roads, and, as a result, pedestrians, an above ground tram system and a barrage of cyclists dominate. On a side note, the bikers are reckless and incredibly dangerous for travelers! The emphasis on public spaces and parks, a common theme with European cities, persists in Amsterdam making a walk around town all that much more enjoyable. A little farther out from the city center more residential districts shed light on how Dutch people live in a city known around the world for its psychedelics. Just a short walk in a residential district near Amsterdam's equivalent to New York's City Park gave me an altogether different interpretation of the city. The contrast from the Red Light District is no less extreme than black and white.
Brandon and arrived at the Flying Pig Uptown hostel in late morning only to find out that, in a feat of brilliance, Mr. Cibulka booked the hostel rooms for him and his two mates for April 26th and 27th instead of February! They ended up finding a hotel closer to downtown while another group of Madisonians from Barcelona and I checked in at the hostel. The cloud covered sky made the day slip effortlessly into night and to happy hour at the hostel providing another great opportunity to try some new and exciting beers (I highly recommend Hoegarrden and Leffe). Our group then matriculated our way down to Rembrandt Square thanks to a suggestion from a few select locals. We ended up at one of a slew of bars sporting a large, red 'Heineken.' At first we enjoyed our round and the selection of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and Y.M.C.A. as the first few songs but quickly began to feel out of place. First we saw two girls making on the dance floor - a first for any of us males. It was only after a bit more extensive observation that we realized girls were not the only gender feeling promiscuous. Almost simultaneously, the lot of us realized we had mistakenly wandered into an openly gay-bar and were not much for welcome! We promptly cancelled our next round and left.
Saturday involved more wandering, a guided tour, a trip to the Anne Frank House and another trip to Rembrandt Square in the evening. This time we went to an Irish pub called St. James' Gate to watch the end of the Barcelona football match. Although nothing very exciting happened after the match, my newly found friend from Madison Alex and I struck up a conversation with an Irishman named Charlie currently working in the City (London's Wall St.). I don't know if it is that I just simply don't find the need to talk to random people while in the States because I am always with a group of friends or if Americans just aren't as friendly but I never ceased to be amazed at how friendly European folks are. Alex and I talked to him for well over an hour while he bought us drinks, and, like every conversation I am lucky enough to partake in with other more worldly folk, I learned a great deal of things about life. Thinking the excitement of my night would come to an end when I left the pub, I found myself shocked to discover a random cat lying in my bed when I returned to the hostel. Moreover, said cat had absolutely no desire to sleep anywhere else for the evening. Only in Amsterdam would I ever just say 'what the hell' and sleep with the hostel cat!
On Sunday the Barcelona crowd left and the Londoners arrived in the morning to accompany me on the Heineken experience. After the tour, I still don't really enjoy Heineken but I had a fun time learning about it and getting 4 free beers in the process. After our truly Dutch experience with beer, we headed back to the hostel for a nap, some Euchre, Rummy and beer. We ended up playing 'shithead' (a slightly altered version of Shapoo) with a British guy named Neil who was just completing a 3 year tour of the world. It really seemed as if every bloke I talked to was in the midst of some epic world tour to 'find themselves.' So much so that I subliminally questioned whether or not people were telling the truth. Either way, it really made me realize how cool of an experience studying abroad is and how young I am in the general scheme of things - a reassuring feeling no doubt. While shooting the shit with Neil, he confessed to us that he felt we were much different than most of the people he had met from America. He then went on to describe the majority of his companions as coasties, yes he used that term specifically, and said that we seemed much more down to earth. Although I didn't express much gratitude at the time, in retrospect that may be one of the best comments I have ever received as a Midwest kid. I suppose it is what our region prides itself on and I'm glad that our 'efforts' are understood the world over!
Overall, I had an incredible time in the 'sex and drug capital of the world' but not so much because of the sex and drugs. The people and the city really differentiated Amsterdam for me and it is a place I would absolutely recommend going for whatever reasons. It seems to me like Amsterdam is just one of those places you generally have to go to sometime in your life for a multitude of reasons both legal and illegal back home :) Check that off the proverbial bucket list!
Hope everyone is doing well. Not sure when I'll write next but I think I have to actually write a few essays in the next few weeks so it may be a bit. Regardless, stay in touch and check the pictures on Fbook!
Cheers :)
Patrick
Like usual, my international journey started in London the night before. I was completely delighted to be asked directions, not once, but twice from people trying to get around in London while I was doing some evening exploring of my own. I don't think I look any less American than I did 2 months ago but maybe I give off a more European vibe now? And if that is the case, I'm not entirely sure it is a good thing? In typical fashion I overestimated the amount of time it would take me to take the tube to the airport and get checked in so I had a few hours to kill at Heathrow. I did get the chance to share a nice conversation with an 86 year old guy headed to his home on the outskirts of London after his ballroom dancing class haha...old people are always real fun to chat up. I spent the short flight to Amsterdam sitting next to a guy reading Twilight so I just decided to take a nap since I didn't think we would have a whole lot in common. I think that any male that can legitimately participate in a Jacob/Edward conversation should probably take a look at what he is doing with his life. Coincidently, I found myself sitting next to a few girls from the states on the train from the airport to Central station and there was even one from Madison! I was about to introduce myself until I listened to them talk and came to realize that it was the most stereotypical coastie and psuedo-coastie (the bad half of the north-side Chicagoans) crowd and didn't really want to associate myself with such people. The most coastie of them all from Philly even had a lisp (not to be mean but I just couldn’t help but laugh). One of the funniest conversations I have ever overheard in my life; I just kept my mouth shut and pretended to not understand what they were saying in order to avoid interaction.
After figuring out that sketchy little back alleys are actually main roads, I managed to find my hostel where, as planned, Brandon Cibulka was awaiting my arrival. The concept of meeting up with a friendly face in cities I never thought I'd set foot in makes me smile every time. I must admit that the hostel was not at all like I expected. They had a very cool bar area, an incredible playlist, and a very eccentric lot which made hanging out with a beer and bobbing your head to some tunes incredibly enjoyable. Happy hour and 1 Euro Yager shots also did their part in enhancing the atmosphere. Naturally, Brandon and I immediately did what any pair of Americans visiting Amsterdam would do. Think real hard, I bet you can guess! After dark, we did the next thing anybody visiting Amsterdam would do: go exploring in the infamous 'Red Light District!' The district is actually marked by red lights and has a faint red glow in the evening, it isn't just a name. I really don't know how to properly describe walking around amidst a hub of legal prostitution and having random girls motion for you to come towards their window. The only reactions Brandon and I ever mustered were fits of laughter. The weirdness of walking around is trumped 100x when you actually see someone negotiating with one of the nice young ladies, stepping inside her glass door and closing the curtain. Ridiculous! We learned later in a guided walking tour of Amsterdam that all of the girls are 'entrepreneurs' for lack of a better turn and rent out their windows for 60 Euros a night and then have to 'work' to pay the bills and make a living. Arguably the most famous church in Amsterdam is located in the Red Light District along with a kindergarten - an interesting combination of industries I'd say! It’s even stranger to contemplate the idea that real estate in the area is very valuable and that people actually live there.
The next day we had to change hostels for Friday and Saturday night and meet up with a few kids from Brandon's program in Barcelona. Our hostel for Friday and Saturday was a 20/30 minute walk outside of the city center so it gave us a chance to see what kind of a city Amsterdam really is. It is a very beautiful place with semi-circular canals that run parallel to each other from Central Station. Streets then dissect the canals like rays of sunshine extending outward from the Station. It was immensely confusing at first, but after a few days the organization began to make sense and the system as a whole made it pretty easy to get around. I, like most people, did not really think of Amsterdam as a proper city before I arrived. Instead, one only ponders the experience and ridiculousness. For that reason, I think it is necessary to at least attempt to do the beautiful, quaint and surprisingly peaceful place some justice. Lining every canal and major street, three to four story town house style buildings jut out from the cobble stone streets. Each row of buildings is somewhat symmetric yet every individual building has a distinctive charm reminiscent of the 18th or 19th century when the majority of them were built. On main roads -which themselves are hardly roads the way we consider them- the bottom floors of all of the structures contain a very trendy assortment of designer shops. I was perhaps most amazed by the utter amazingness of the sneakers offered; I venture to say that Amsterdam is the world capital of awesome variations of popular shoes. No doubt that the brick-laden streets of Amsterdam the place where all of the famous American rappers get their 'fresh new kicks.' There are essentially no automobiles on any of the roads, and, as a result, pedestrians, an above ground tram system and a barrage of cyclists dominate. On a side note, the bikers are reckless and incredibly dangerous for travelers! The emphasis on public spaces and parks, a common theme with European cities, persists in Amsterdam making a walk around town all that much more enjoyable. A little farther out from the city center more residential districts shed light on how Dutch people live in a city known around the world for its psychedelics. Just a short walk in a residential district near Amsterdam's equivalent to New York's City Park gave me an altogether different interpretation of the city. The contrast from the Red Light District is no less extreme than black and white.
Brandon and arrived at the Flying Pig Uptown hostel in late morning only to find out that, in a feat of brilliance, Mr. Cibulka booked the hostel rooms for him and his two mates for April 26th and 27th instead of February! They ended up finding a hotel closer to downtown while another group of Madisonians from Barcelona and I checked in at the hostel. The cloud covered sky made the day slip effortlessly into night and to happy hour at the hostel providing another great opportunity to try some new and exciting beers (I highly recommend Hoegarrden and Leffe). Our group then matriculated our way down to Rembrandt Square thanks to a suggestion from a few select locals. We ended up at one of a slew of bars sporting a large, red 'Heineken.' At first we enjoyed our round and the selection of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and Y.M.C.A. as the first few songs but quickly began to feel out of place. First we saw two girls making on the dance floor - a first for any of us males. It was only after a bit more extensive observation that we realized girls were not the only gender feeling promiscuous. Almost simultaneously, the lot of us realized we had mistakenly wandered into an openly gay-bar and were not much for welcome! We promptly cancelled our next round and left.
Saturday involved more wandering, a guided tour, a trip to the Anne Frank House and another trip to Rembrandt Square in the evening. This time we went to an Irish pub called St. James' Gate to watch the end of the Barcelona football match. Although nothing very exciting happened after the match, my newly found friend from Madison Alex and I struck up a conversation with an Irishman named Charlie currently working in the City (London's Wall St.). I don't know if it is that I just simply don't find the need to talk to random people while in the States because I am always with a group of friends or if Americans just aren't as friendly but I never ceased to be amazed at how friendly European folks are. Alex and I talked to him for well over an hour while he bought us drinks, and, like every conversation I am lucky enough to partake in with other more worldly folk, I learned a great deal of things about life. Thinking the excitement of my night would come to an end when I left the pub, I found myself shocked to discover a random cat lying in my bed when I returned to the hostel. Moreover, said cat had absolutely no desire to sleep anywhere else for the evening. Only in Amsterdam would I ever just say 'what the hell' and sleep with the hostel cat!
On Sunday the Barcelona crowd left and the Londoners arrived in the morning to accompany me on the Heineken experience. After the tour, I still don't really enjoy Heineken but I had a fun time learning about it and getting 4 free beers in the process. After our truly Dutch experience with beer, we headed back to the hostel for a nap, some Euchre, Rummy and beer. We ended up playing 'shithead' (a slightly altered version of Shapoo) with a British guy named Neil who was just completing a 3 year tour of the world. It really seemed as if every bloke I talked to was in the midst of some epic world tour to 'find themselves.' So much so that I subliminally questioned whether or not people were telling the truth. Either way, it really made me realize how cool of an experience studying abroad is and how young I am in the general scheme of things - a reassuring feeling no doubt. While shooting the shit with Neil, he confessed to us that he felt we were much different than most of the people he had met from America. He then went on to describe the majority of his companions as coasties, yes he used that term specifically, and said that we seemed much more down to earth. Although I didn't express much gratitude at the time, in retrospect that may be one of the best comments I have ever received as a Midwest kid. I suppose it is what our region prides itself on and I'm glad that our 'efforts' are understood the world over!
Overall, I had an incredible time in the 'sex and drug capital of the world' but not so much because of the sex and drugs. The people and the city really differentiated Amsterdam for me and it is a place I would absolutely recommend going for whatever reasons. It seems to me like Amsterdam is just one of those places you generally have to go to sometime in your life for a multitude of reasons both legal and illegal back home :) Check that off the proverbial bucket list!
Hope everyone is doing well. Not sure when I'll write next but I think I have to actually write a few essays in the next few weeks so it may be a bit. Regardless, stay in touch and check the pictures on Fbook!
Cheers :)
Patrick
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Baguettes, Cheap Wine and Valentine's Day in Paris!
Bonjour!
4:00am Friday February 12th. On par with my previous experiences with early morning travel departures, I was completely unable to fall asleep at any decent time the night before so I was forced awake after only an hour and a half of sleep in order to walk to the train station for our 5:43am departure to Paris! Despite being a little tired, realizing the fact that I was actually traveling to the famed ‘City of Lights’ held the energy equivalent of about 6 Red Bulls. After a quick high-speed rail ride underneath the English Channel, we (Mike, Cole, Jack and I) stepped out of our rail car in Harry Potter-esque fashion completely unable to believe where we now were. We also quickly realized that, between the 4 of us, we spoke a grand total of 8 French words and really had no idea what to do.
At this point we learned out first lesson about getting around in Paris – paying for the Metro is a complete waste of money. Cole originally informed us most people use one ticket for 2 people because the turnstiles and entry gates to get into the underground were easy to fit multiple people through. Given my terrible luck, I was reluctant to practice what we deemed the “Buddy System” originally but saving money took precedence. I also become much more comfortable with circumventing the system when I saw a man by 1 ticket for his family of 6, go through the entrance and then proceed to open the exit door so the rest of his family could walk through. Later in the trip, my fears were entirely removed when I watched a homeless man crawl through a 2x2 hole in a barrier to get into the Metro while 4 policemen were watching. He then proceeded to offer a cheerful ‘Bonjour’ to the squad and continue onward with his journey. After 4 days of traveling, I think it is safe to say that we all saved at least 20 Euro with the “Buddy System.”
We arrived at Melanie and Katie’s (study abroad students from UW in Paris) still relatively early in the morning excited to see some friendly faces, have some guidance on what to do to and that we didn’t have to pay for somewhere to stay. They almost instantly introduced us to the wonderful world of $2 bottles of wine and .90 Eurocent Baguettes dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette that would be the staples of our diet for the remaining 4 days. Although the weather was less than ideal and quite a bit colder than the London we left we couldn’t wait to get out and see the sights. Our first stop was the infinitely creepy Catacombs. In case you’re not familiar, the Catacombs are a series of abandoned mining tunnels that run under the streets of Paris where near 6 million people’s bones are arranged in ‘artistic’ patterns using the skulls to make crosses and hearts. I would highly advise a Wikipedia search or that anyone reading this take a look at my Facebook pictures to truly understand just how unspeakable and frightening that 2 mile walk was.
I was incredibly relieved to be above ground again as we set off on a lengthy walk towards Notre Dame and the Louvre. We quickly found out that walking around Paris is somewhat similar to using Stumble Upon on the internet; every time you turn a corner or look down a street you see something either incredible or famous. This first happened when we wandered into a large park and got our first sight of the Eiffel Tower silhouetted against the foggy horizon. Seeing the historic landmark for the first time made us all giddy with excitement. Personally, I really couldn’t believe it at the time and the entire experience would continue to be surreal for a few days. Our next ‘Stumble’ took us on a detour towards the Pantheon which we somehow neglected to see originally despite its towering stature and grandiose classical-inspired architecture. While walked from the Pantheon towards Notre Dame, I learned two very important lessons about Paris. Number 1 – the amount of PDA is overwhelming. Number 2 – gypsies are ruthless in their attempts to get tourists to give them spare change. At one point after Jack told her he didn’t have any extra change while he was conveniently eating a cheeseburger, she followed us across the street while yelling what I can only image were French obscenities or an ancient gypsy curse.
I won’t bore potential readers with constant descriptions of historical landmarks but I do think it is notable to elaborate on just how ridiculous it is to cross a street and all of a sudden be on the Seine River looking across its waters to the spires and stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral. Places like that seemingly only exist in Disney movies or adventure epics starring Nicholas Cage and Tom Hanks so to actually be there was incredible. Often times, the 4 of us were speechless while we took endless photos of the landmarks we were viewing seemingly as a way to ensure that they were actually real. After Notre Dame, we all pointed westward and in our best attempt at copying Eurotrip we exclaimed “To the Louvre!” Unfortunately there was no robo-performer waiting to entertain us outside the large glass pyramid yet that may have been a good thing because we only had to que for 5 minutes to get in. Our first destination was, of course, the Mona Lisa. I have heard it really isn’t all that impressive before but after seeing it, I’d say that is sort of an understatement. Nonetheless, we all took pictures and continued to explore the museum which is really too big to properly describe in words. The glass pyramid which you often see is about 1/100th of the rest of the structure which stretches for many city blocks and is impossible to efficiently navigate. On our way out due to sheer exhaustion and other unknown reasons the four of us broke out into a spirited rendition of “All-Star” by Smashmouth singing it from start to finish and confusing the hell out of the various ethnic groups that overheard us.
I have never been much of a wine drinker but, much like my obsession with Keystone, at $2 a bottle we all gladly picked up a pair and proceeded to get properly hammered in true French style – something that became a nightly theme. Unable to completely remove ourselves from Midwest drinking culture, we played a bit of Gladiator to get things going followed by a few entertaining minutes on Chat Roulette before stumbling out onto the town. (I advise noone to go on Chat Roulette unless properly hammered; otherwise it is down-right creepy and awkward lol.) Ordering drunk food is so much harder in different languages. The series of pointing, laughter and chaos that went along with that were completely worth it once I got my first Nutella and banana crepe. OMG, probably the best thing ever! Anyways, the great thing about French wine is that it doesn’t have preservatives like its American counterparts and thus isn’t accompanied by the massive hangovers – much appreciated the next morning.
Unfortunately Paris got the Wisconsin bug on Saturday with about 30 degree temperatures and a mild mannered snowfall. According to Melanie and Katie it was the coldest day they have seen since they got there in January. I insisted it was my awful fortunes that accounted for this phenomenon. There was no chance that the 4 of us were going to let a little measly snow get in the way of our adventures, it just made them somewhat uncomfortable at times. It becomes rather hard to take pictures when your hands go numb after about a minute and beg to be back in your pockets. Fortunately for me I had brought my scarf and I felt right at home with the rest of the European crowds as we wandered to the Arc de Triomphe. Almost more amazing than the structure itself and the view of Paris from the top was the 8 lane round-about that circled it. There were no lane lines, no arrows, no instructions; cars just darted around facing every possible direction almost running into each other every fifteen sections. Clusterfuck seems to be the only word to accurately describe the madness. Going to the Eiffel Tower after that may have been the first time when I came to realize that I was in fact in Paris. Standing at the feet of that structure is an awe inspiring experience. I won’t go into much detail yet since we returned the following evening for one of the most incredible evenings of my life! Our drunken wanderings during the evening helped me to quantify why European people hold the stereotypes that they do of Americans. It is comical to see groups of people walking around bar districts all having a good time and enjoying themselves somewhat quietly and then to compare them to our group of 8 Americans who are yelling, dancing and singing ‘Pants on the Ground.’ We got a lot of dirty looks who just couldn’t appreciate the significance of ‘lookin’ like a fool with your hat turned sideways’ but we didn’t give a shit because we were having a great time. Honestly, overly drunk and loud is an American staple because it is fun as hell and you could care less what the surrounding world thinks.
Another hang-over free morning after two bottles of wine greeted us with the sun shining. We walked on down to the local Boulongerie (Bakery) and picked up some fresh, warm baguettes for breakfast and hopped the Metro entrance on our way to Sacre Couer or “The Church on the Hill.” Situated on the outskirts of the city on a hill (which required a hell of a climb to get to) the view of the city from the Cathedral is breathtaking. On top of the view, it was finally nice out and it was Valentine’s Day so all of the Parisian couples were happily making out on the steps of the plaza in front of Sacre Couer. Love was in the air! I was also delighted to find two robot performers doin’ their robo-things. Regrettably I could not work up the courage to battle with one. Following that experience, we took our time walking down the Seine on our way to meet up with the girls at the Eiffel that evening. In glorious fashion, they greeted us with 2 fresh baguettes and a few bottles of champagne to celebrate the holliday! Since we had some time to kill before dark, we went on an adventure to find the second Statue of Liberty made famous in National Treasurer 2 and per a request by Matthew Faster before I left. In the movie, Cage seems to look at the statue right next to the Eiffel Tower. In reality, the statue is like two miles away on a secluded little island where homeless people tent out and everything is in really shitty condition – goes to show you how much the French like Americans. Cole and Jack made sure to make an improvisational version of the ‘America, Fuck Yeah’ scene from Team America before we left haha!
As the sun set and darkness blanketed the city, we made our way to an island with a better view of the Tower to wait for it to light up and enjoy our champagne. Popping bottles into the Seine and eating baguettes with the glorious golden Eiffel Tower in the background was an experience unlike any other I’ve had before. Being able to drink in public places is really wonderful. On the same island there was an American couple who were visiting from London for a romantic V-Day evening. Our loudness and fervent picture taking probably ruined their evening and may or may not have pushed back the guy’s proposal to his beautiful girlfriend but oh well haha. I was not aware that the tower is equipped with a plethora of bright flashing white lights that go into a frenzy every hour on the hour to make the entire structure appear as if it is shimmering or sparkling in the night sky. It is really impossible to really quantify into words and I suggest everyone to YouTube it or at least look at some pictures. A few bottles of bubbly later we made the trek towards the tower to queue for the journey to the top of the tower. It was a bit freezing after standing there for an hour but when we made it to the second deck and, finally, the top it was the most picturesque view of anything I have ever seen. The shoreline of the Seine and all of the landmarks shone brightly against the night sky on the clear and brisk evening. Again, words really fail to properly describe the view and everyone should really check out my pictures. The entire experience was nothing short of jaw-dropping. Epic.
On Monday I met up with Darcy and her friend Abby as well as Noah in the evening because the three of them were just getting into Paris to spend their week off. It is really a ridiculous concept to get a phone call from a friend in a foreign city and go about meeting up with them especially considering how hard it is to get together in Madison some times. We enjoyed dinner and returned to Melanie and Katie’s place a little behind on the pre-game festivities. At about 11:45 we decided to hope on the Metro and go to Moulin Rouge to take some pictures even though the Metro closes at 12:30 and if we got stuck, it would take well over an hour to walk back home…sometimes you just have to ‘live dangerously’ haha! We knew it was going to be a fun experience when a French guy listening to ‘Run this Town’ accidentally unplugged his headphones and our entire metro car broke out into song to the vast confusion of many of the other commuters. At Moulin Rouge we had one of the most ridiculous picture taking extravaganzas ever and somehow managed to sprint back down to the Metro and catch it home before closing time! The tipsy walk home encapsulated all of our memories of the weekend and again was a perfect example of a group of rowdy Americans yelling, singing and having a great time at 1am. Probably didn’t make too many locals very happy but let me tell you, I won’t forget my Valentine’s Day in Paris anytime soon!
I actually have to write a few essays in the next 4 or 5 days so this weekend is going to be pretty chilled out but I meet up with Brandon Cibulka in Amsterdam next Thursday for another 4 day weekend filled with festivities…I can’t wait! In the meantime I am going to enjoy the proper blizzard we are currently getting and I hope everyone is doing really well! Stay in touch :)
Cheers,
Patrick
4:00am Friday February 12th. On par with my previous experiences with early morning travel departures, I was completely unable to fall asleep at any decent time the night before so I was forced awake after only an hour and a half of sleep in order to walk to the train station for our 5:43am departure to Paris! Despite being a little tired, realizing the fact that I was actually traveling to the famed ‘City of Lights’ held the energy equivalent of about 6 Red Bulls. After a quick high-speed rail ride underneath the English Channel, we (Mike, Cole, Jack and I) stepped out of our rail car in Harry Potter-esque fashion completely unable to believe where we now were. We also quickly realized that, between the 4 of us, we spoke a grand total of 8 French words and really had no idea what to do.
At this point we learned out first lesson about getting around in Paris – paying for the Metro is a complete waste of money. Cole originally informed us most people use one ticket for 2 people because the turnstiles and entry gates to get into the underground were easy to fit multiple people through. Given my terrible luck, I was reluctant to practice what we deemed the “Buddy System” originally but saving money took precedence. I also become much more comfortable with circumventing the system when I saw a man by 1 ticket for his family of 6, go through the entrance and then proceed to open the exit door so the rest of his family could walk through. Later in the trip, my fears were entirely removed when I watched a homeless man crawl through a 2x2 hole in a barrier to get into the Metro while 4 policemen were watching. He then proceeded to offer a cheerful ‘Bonjour’ to the squad and continue onward with his journey. After 4 days of traveling, I think it is safe to say that we all saved at least 20 Euro with the “Buddy System.”
We arrived at Melanie and Katie’s (study abroad students from UW in Paris) still relatively early in the morning excited to see some friendly faces, have some guidance on what to do to and that we didn’t have to pay for somewhere to stay. They almost instantly introduced us to the wonderful world of $2 bottles of wine and .90 Eurocent Baguettes dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette that would be the staples of our diet for the remaining 4 days. Although the weather was less than ideal and quite a bit colder than the London we left we couldn’t wait to get out and see the sights. Our first stop was the infinitely creepy Catacombs. In case you’re not familiar, the Catacombs are a series of abandoned mining tunnels that run under the streets of Paris where near 6 million people’s bones are arranged in ‘artistic’ patterns using the skulls to make crosses and hearts. I would highly advise a Wikipedia search or that anyone reading this take a look at my Facebook pictures to truly understand just how unspeakable and frightening that 2 mile walk was.
I was incredibly relieved to be above ground again as we set off on a lengthy walk towards Notre Dame and the Louvre. We quickly found out that walking around Paris is somewhat similar to using Stumble Upon on the internet; every time you turn a corner or look down a street you see something either incredible or famous. This first happened when we wandered into a large park and got our first sight of the Eiffel Tower silhouetted against the foggy horizon. Seeing the historic landmark for the first time made us all giddy with excitement. Personally, I really couldn’t believe it at the time and the entire experience would continue to be surreal for a few days. Our next ‘Stumble’ took us on a detour towards the Pantheon which we somehow neglected to see originally despite its towering stature and grandiose classical-inspired architecture. While walked from the Pantheon towards Notre Dame, I learned two very important lessons about Paris. Number 1 – the amount of PDA is overwhelming. Number 2 – gypsies are ruthless in their attempts to get tourists to give them spare change. At one point after Jack told her he didn’t have any extra change while he was conveniently eating a cheeseburger, she followed us across the street while yelling what I can only image were French obscenities or an ancient gypsy curse.
I won’t bore potential readers with constant descriptions of historical landmarks but I do think it is notable to elaborate on just how ridiculous it is to cross a street and all of a sudden be on the Seine River looking across its waters to the spires and stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral. Places like that seemingly only exist in Disney movies or adventure epics starring Nicholas Cage and Tom Hanks so to actually be there was incredible. Often times, the 4 of us were speechless while we took endless photos of the landmarks we were viewing seemingly as a way to ensure that they were actually real. After Notre Dame, we all pointed westward and in our best attempt at copying Eurotrip we exclaimed “To the Louvre!” Unfortunately there was no robo-performer waiting to entertain us outside the large glass pyramid yet that may have been a good thing because we only had to que for 5 minutes to get in. Our first destination was, of course, the Mona Lisa. I have heard it really isn’t all that impressive before but after seeing it, I’d say that is sort of an understatement. Nonetheless, we all took pictures and continued to explore the museum which is really too big to properly describe in words. The glass pyramid which you often see is about 1/100th of the rest of the structure which stretches for many city blocks and is impossible to efficiently navigate. On our way out due to sheer exhaustion and other unknown reasons the four of us broke out into a spirited rendition of “All-Star” by Smashmouth singing it from start to finish and confusing the hell out of the various ethnic groups that overheard us.
I have never been much of a wine drinker but, much like my obsession with Keystone, at $2 a bottle we all gladly picked up a pair and proceeded to get properly hammered in true French style – something that became a nightly theme. Unable to completely remove ourselves from Midwest drinking culture, we played a bit of Gladiator to get things going followed by a few entertaining minutes on Chat Roulette before stumbling out onto the town. (I advise noone to go on Chat Roulette unless properly hammered; otherwise it is down-right creepy and awkward lol.) Ordering drunk food is so much harder in different languages. The series of pointing, laughter and chaos that went along with that were completely worth it once I got my first Nutella and banana crepe. OMG, probably the best thing ever! Anyways, the great thing about French wine is that it doesn’t have preservatives like its American counterparts and thus isn’t accompanied by the massive hangovers – much appreciated the next morning.
Unfortunately Paris got the Wisconsin bug on Saturday with about 30 degree temperatures and a mild mannered snowfall. According to Melanie and Katie it was the coldest day they have seen since they got there in January. I insisted it was my awful fortunes that accounted for this phenomenon. There was no chance that the 4 of us were going to let a little measly snow get in the way of our adventures, it just made them somewhat uncomfortable at times. It becomes rather hard to take pictures when your hands go numb after about a minute and beg to be back in your pockets. Fortunately for me I had brought my scarf and I felt right at home with the rest of the European crowds as we wandered to the Arc de Triomphe. Almost more amazing than the structure itself and the view of Paris from the top was the 8 lane round-about that circled it. There were no lane lines, no arrows, no instructions; cars just darted around facing every possible direction almost running into each other every fifteen sections. Clusterfuck seems to be the only word to accurately describe the madness. Going to the Eiffel Tower after that may have been the first time when I came to realize that I was in fact in Paris. Standing at the feet of that structure is an awe inspiring experience. I won’t go into much detail yet since we returned the following evening for one of the most incredible evenings of my life! Our drunken wanderings during the evening helped me to quantify why European people hold the stereotypes that they do of Americans. It is comical to see groups of people walking around bar districts all having a good time and enjoying themselves somewhat quietly and then to compare them to our group of 8 Americans who are yelling, dancing and singing ‘Pants on the Ground.’ We got a lot of dirty looks who just couldn’t appreciate the significance of ‘lookin’ like a fool with your hat turned sideways’ but we didn’t give a shit because we were having a great time. Honestly, overly drunk and loud is an American staple because it is fun as hell and you could care less what the surrounding world thinks.
Another hang-over free morning after two bottles of wine greeted us with the sun shining. We walked on down to the local Boulongerie (Bakery) and picked up some fresh, warm baguettes for breakfast and hopped the Metro entrance on our way to Sacre Couer or “The Church on the Hill.” Situated on the outskirts of the city on a hill (which required a hell of a climb to get to) the view of the city from the Cathedral is breathtaking. On top of the view, it was finally nice out and it was Valentine’s Day so all of the Parisian couples were happily making out on the steps of the plaza in front of Sacre Couer. Love was in the air! I was also delighted to find two robot performers doin’ their robo-things. Regrettably I could not work up the courage to battle with one. Following that experience, we took our time walking down the Seine on our way to meet up with the girls at the Eiffel that evening. In glorious fashion, they greeted us with 2 fresh baguettes and a few bottles of champagne to celebrate the holliday! Since we had some time to kill before dark, we went on an adventure to find the second Statue of Liberty made famous in National Treasurer 2 and per a request by Matthew Faster before I left. In the movie, Cage seems to look at the statue right next to the Eiffel Tower. In reality, the statue is like two miles away on a secluded little island where homeless people tent out and everything is in really shitty condition – goes to show you how much the French like Americans. Cole and Jack made sure to make an improvisational version of the ‘America, Fuck Yeah’ scene from Team America before we left haha!
As the sun set and darkness blanketed the city, we made our way to an island with a better view of the Tower to wait for it to light up and enjoy our champagne. Popping bottles into the Seine and eating baguettes with the glorious golden Eiffel Tower in the background was an experience unlike any other I’ve had before. Being able to drink in public places is really wonderful. On the same island there was an American couple who were visiting from London for a romantic V-Day evening. Our loudness and fervent picture taking probably ruined their evening and may or may not have pushed back the guy’s proposal to his beautiful girlfriend but oh well haha. I was not aware that the tower is equipped with a plethora of bright flashing white lights that go into a frenzy every hour on the hour to make the entire structure appear as if it is shimmering or sparkling in the night sky. It is really impossible to really quantify into words and I suggest everyone to YouTube it or at least look at some pictures. A few bottles of bubbly later we made the trek towards the tower to queue for the journey to the top of the tower. It was a bit freezing after standing there for an hour but when we made it to the second deck and, finally, the top it was the most picturesque view of anything I have ever seen. The shoreline of the Seine and all of the landmarks shone brightly against the night sky on the clear and brisk evening. Again, words really fail to properly describe the view and everyone should really check out my pictures. The entire experience was nothing short of jaw-dropping. Epic.
On Monday I met up with Darcy and her friend Abby as well as Noah in the evening because the three of them were just getting into Paris to spend their week off. It is really a ridiculous concept to get a phone call from a friend in a foreign city and go about meeting up with them especially considering how hard it is to get together in Madison some times. We enjoyed dinner and returned to Melanie and Katie’s place a little behind on the pre-game festivities. At about 11:45 we decided to hope on the Metro and go to Moulin Rouge to take some pictures even though the Metro closes at 12:30 and if we got stuck, it would take well over an hour to walk back home…sometimes you just have to ‘live dangerously’ haha! We knew it was going to be a fun experience when a French guy listening to ‘Run this Town’ accidentally unplugged his headphones and our entire metro car broke out into song to the vast confusion of many of the other commuters. At Moulin Rouge we had one of the most ridiculous picture taking extravaganzas ever and somehow managed to sprint back down to the Metro and catch it home before closing time! The tipsy walk home encapsulated all of our memories of the weekend and again was a perfect example of a group of rowdy Americans yelling, singing and having a great time at 1am. Probably didn’t make too many locals very happy but let me tell you, I won’t forget my Valentine’s Day in Paris anytime soon!
I actually have to write a few essays in the next 4 or 5 days so this weekend is going to be pretty chilled out but I meet up with Brandon Cibulka in Amsterdam next Thursday for another 4 day weekend filled with festivities…I can’t wait! In the meantime I am going to enjoy the proper blizzard we are currently getting and I hope everyone is doing really well! Stay in touch :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Friday, February 5, 2010
A Bit About School, Sports and Culture!
With three weeks under my belt, and a quick three weeks at that, I feel like less of a wandering fool on campus; it did take me a while to comprehend that the ground floor is commonly called Floor 0 instead of Floor 1. I know where all my of my classes are and am starting to get a feel for the one's I'm going to be skipping. On a semi-related note, the habits of crowds of people are absolutely infuriating. There are normally only 1 set of doors to get out of big lecture halls and every time you try to leave the people in the next class stand directly in front of them and do not let anybody get out. You have to push and shove your way through a crowd to leave and nobody moves. Moreover, people like to sit three-wide on stair cases and don’t move when you are walking up or down so you have to essentially jump over them. People walk 5 wide on the sidewalk and don’t move over when you have to pass going the opposite direction. I often feel like an asshole because I just run into people but hell, if they aren’t going to move then why should I?
It is still a bit strange for me to be on a campus that isn't directly connected to a city which limits the places I can go on a daily basis without having to spend one or two quid on a bus fare. There are a great deal of similarities to U.S. college culture. The relative distribution of individuals among their majors is still the same. Math and accounting are dominated by the Asian demographic and all of my teachers speak poor English. The other parts of the business school are a mix of down to earth people, people who like to wear suits and ties, and those ultra-conservative folks who are kind of hard to get along with. Professors drone through white PowerPoint slides with black bulleted text. Overall, much is similar between the education systems except the relative difficulty of the course work (much less demanding in Britain). History, like usual, brings interesting and very poorly dressed folks. Maybe I shouldn't be talking about dress codes though since I have moved to the bottom of the ladder in that department since coming here. Damn pea coats, scarves and brown/black leather shoes.
With the expansion of my free time, I decided to go check out the basketball courts and workout facility. Let’s just say that it’s not exactly the SERF. They only have 2 basketball courts and they aren’t open – you have to reserve them ahead of time if you want to play basketball because other people are always playing strange European sports. If you don’t reserve it, then you have to go at the specific times during the week that are allocated for basketball, it’s weird. The overall talent level is pretty horrendous although people tend to think they are good. It really is difficult to be good because offense and defense are just chaos with no rhyme or reason to anything; nobody moves where they are supposed to, rotates, helps, cuts or sets any screens to speak of. After realizing how out of shape I was, I headed up to the workout room and, for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged in a weight room. Not exactly the meathead-palooza that you get in the States.
Every since I’ve been here, I have been running into Madison references all over the place which seems incredibly strange to me. I think the first one happened while we were watching the NFL Playoffs in London. During the halftime report the awful announcers for SkySports (a pathetic attempt to copy ESPN) made a phone call to their NFL correspondent in Madison, Wisconsin. First of all, I had no idea who the guy was and he knew nothing about football. Second, why the hell would Madison be the place to go to get an opinion on the NFL? Maybe Indianapolis or New York would have been better options as they were the ones who were playing. The next one happened after I came home from a club in Coventry at 3am on a Saturday night. Pretty spectacular club, the first three songs that played after we got drinks and got to the dance floor were Jump Around, Get Low and Soulja Boy haha! Anyways, I got home, went to the kitchen to make some food and turned on BBC Radio to hear them debate the ‘most European city’ in America and decide on Madison, Wisconsin!! I don’t really know if that’s a good or bad thing but I laughed out loud none the less. Again, what are the chances? It seemed ironic to me especially since absolutely nobody knows where Wisconsin is, much less Madison. When I’m out I’ve resorted to telling people I’m from Chicago a lot of the time so I don’t have to try to explain U.S. geography.
There are a lot of other things I have a lot of trouble explaining to the British population. The first is just how cold it is in Wisconsin. People always think I’m crazy when I go outside in just a long sleeve shirt when everyone else is bundled up. I always try to explain how this weather (40-45 degrees) is practically like spring to me to no avail. I have resorted to telling everyone that the average temperature in January is 10 degrees colder than what our freezer in the kitchen is set at! It is also very difficult to try to convey just how epic drinking culture in Madison is. If you haven’t experienced a football game day, Mifflin or Halloween and don’t understand the concept of a house party it really isn’t easy to try to talk up the way we party. Thank god for YouTube. Needless to say, my flat mates really enjoyed Jump Around! Then there was informing everyone about beer pong, flip cup, quarters, beer bongs and keg stands. I felt like I was reading a story to little kids with wide-eyes and open mouths.
Other than an unpleasant early morning evacuation reminiscent of the 3am wake-up calls in Sellery when drunk people pulled the fire alarm and made us all get up and walk outside in the freezing cold I don’t have any real adventures to report other than a few delightful drunken evenings (I’ve instated Thirsty Thursday!). However, I am heading to Paris next week from Feb. 12th to the 16th and am really excited about that! I will make sure to write and post pictures shortly after that to keep everyone up to date on my travels. I hope everyone is doing well on the home front and, like always, stay in touch!
Cheers,
Patrick :)
It is still a bit strange for me to be on a campus that isn't directly connected to a city which limits the places I can go on a daily basis without having to spend one or two quid on a bus fare. There are a great deal of similarities to U.S. college culture. The relative distribution of individuals among their majors is still the same. Math and accounting are dominated by the Asian demographic and all of my teachers speak poor English. The other parts of the business school are a mix of down to earth people, people who like to wear suits and ties, and those ultra-conservative folks who are kind of hard to get along with. Professors drone through white PowerPoint slides with black bulleted text. Overall, much is similar between the education systems except the relative difficulty of the course work (much less demanding in Britain). History, like usual, brings interesting and very poorly dressed folks. Maybe I shouldn't be talking about dress codes though since I have moved to the bottom of the ladder in that department since coming here. Damn pea coats, scarves and brown/black leather shoes.
With the expansion of my free time, I decided to go check out the basketball courts and workout facility. Let’s just say that it’s not exactly the SERF. They only have 2 basketball courts and they aren’t open – you have to reserve them ahead of time if you want to play basketball because other people are always playing strange European sports. If you don’t reserve it, then you have to go at the specific times during the week that are allocated for basketball, it’s weird. The overall talent level is pretty horrendous although people tend to think they are good. It really is difficult to be good because offense and defense are just chaos with no rhyme or reason to anything; nobody moves where they are supposed to, rotates, helps, cuts or sets any screens to speak of. After realizing how out of shape I was, I headed up to the workout room and, for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged in a weight room. Not exactly the meathead-palooza that you get in the States.
Every since I’ve been here, I have been running into Madison references all over the place which seems incredibly strange to me. I think the first one happened while we were watching the NFL Playoffs in London. During the halftime report the awful announcers for SkySports (a pathetic attempt to copy ESPN) made a phone call to their NFL correspondent in Madison, Wisconsin. First of all, I had no idea who the guy was and he knew nothing about football. Second, why the hell would Madison be the place to go to get an opinion on the NFL? Maybe Indianapolis or New York would have been better options as they were the ones who were playing. The next one happened after I came home from a club in Coventry at 3am on a Saturday night. Pretty spectacular club, the first three songs that played after we got drinks and got to the dance floor were Jump Around, Get Low and Soulja Boy haha! Anyways, I got home, went to the kitchen to make some food and turned on BBC Radio to hear them debate the ‘most European city’ in America and decide on Madison, Wisconsin!! I don’t really know if that’s a good or bad thing but I laughed out loud none the less. Again, what are the chances? It seemed ironic to me especially since absolutely nobody knows where Wisconsin is, much less Madison. When I’m out I’ve resorted to telling people I’m from Chicago a lot of the time so I don’t have to try to explain U.S. geography.
There are a lot of other things I have a lot of trouble explaining to the British population. The first is just how cold it is in Wisconsin. People always think I’m crazy when I go outside in just a long sleeve shirt when everyone else is bundled up. I always try to explain how this weather (40-45 degrees) is practically like spring to me to no avail. I have resorted to telling everyone that the average temperature in January is 10 degrees colder than what our freezer in the kitchen is set at! It is also very difficult to try to convey just how epic drinking culture in Madison is. If you haven’t experienced a football game day, Mifflin or Halloween and don’t understand the concept of a house party it really isn’t easy to try to talk up the way we party. Thank god for YouTube. Needless to say, my flat mates really enjoyed Jump Around! Then there was informing everyone about beer pong, flip cup, quarters, beer bongs and keg stands. I felt like I was reading a story to little kids with wide-eyes and open mouths.
Other than an unpleasant early morning evacuation reminiscent of the 3am wake-up calls in Sellery when drunk people pulled the fire alarm and made us all get up and walk outside in the freezing cold I don’t have any real adventures to report other than a few delightful drunken evenings (I’ve instated Thirsty Thursday!). However, I am heading to Paris next week from Feb. 12th to the 16th and am really excited about that! I will make sure to write and post pictures shortly after that to keep everyone up to date on my travels. I hope everyone is doing well on the home front and, like always, stay in touch!
Cheers,
Patrick :)
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