The Hills are Alive?

We had our Italian final Friday morning, the last Friday class we will have for a while, and I was lucky to be one of the first to be called in to have a 5 minute convo with Magda. I think I did an ok job at stumbling through it and she certainly seemed to enjoy the conversation we had because she laughed a lot...in a positive way. I hope.

We said “Ciao, Grazie!” and got on a train around 2 for what would be a 10 hour journey to Salzburg. The warmer climate in Lugano definitely made it easy to forget that, although we are in Switzerland, we are the only region south of the Alps, and the northern countries were not yet feeling the spring weather. Our expectation of green hills and a lively town were shattered as the snow whizzed past our windows on the train. We had been so focused on studying for our Italian final that no one thought to check the weather, and find out that the “green” hills of Salzburg would be white that weekend. It was still beautiful though, we just weren't prepared for another weekend of slushing through the snow.

We arrived late that evening and booked a Sound of Music tour for the next morning. We got up and boarded a van and had an (almost) private tour of all the scenes in the Sound of Music. We blasted the music and sang along to our favorites as we drove around Salzburg and the surrounding area to see the hills, the “Von Trapp” house, the (then frozen) lake that Maria and the children tipped their boat in, the “I am 16 going on 17” gazebo, and the “Do, Re, Mi” stairs, and the wedding church. We learned about th real history behind the true Von Trapp family, Hollywood's interpretations and secrets, and some history about the town from a tour guide who was a little too into the movie to be normal, but who was very nice.

When the tour ended, we walked around the town for a little while and made our way to the Modern Art Museum, which overlooks the city. We drank some tea in their cafe and enjoyed the view of the snowy Austrian town before making our way down a winding path to the Augustiner beer hall for drinks and dinner.

We had half a day in Salzburg to finish up sightseeing before we had to take the train back to Lugano. We went to Mozart's residence where I took a tour and learned about his relationship with the city, his family, his upbringing, and his music. We ate Apple Strudel and special Mozart candies that were local to the city. We continued slushing through the city and went to a few touristy shops before getting on the train in our own “reclining” sleeper cabins for the long trip home.

San Valentin in Firenze

It was Valentine's Weekend, and after being surprised by roses on our doors from all the boys, 9 girls and I went to one of the most romantic cities in Europe to spend V-day weekend with just us gals.

We arrived at the Hotel Sampaoli late Friday night. The multicolored walls, tall ceilings and the stairs that needed to be climbed to get to the lobby made the building a little awkward, but Catie, Whitney and I got 3 beds in a 4-bed ensuite room when we paid for a 6-bed dorm. The weekend was off to a good start.

We walked around Florence until we found a gelateria where I got a scoop of Niccola Gelato with Nuttel Swirls...I was on Hazelnut overload. We got up the next morning, Valentine's Day, and went straight to the Academia to wait in line to see the David. I remember vaguely seeing the statue when I was 13 traveling Florence with my mom, but had forgotten how amazing the detail was. Michaelangelo carved every vein in his arm, and the expression is so realistic. We continued looking at the other sculptures and paintings in the museum, and noticed how different the perception of beauty was in the time of these artists, the women looked so real.

We continued to the center of Florence where we came upon the Duomo. The architecture and marble work is fascinating on the outside. Compared to other churches we have visited, this one was magnificent on the outside and very plain on the inside, where others have very ornate interiors. We waited in line to spiral our way through the walls of the dome and make it to the top with an amazing view of the entire city. We could not have asked for more perfect weather and we were excited to be able to take off our jackets and enjoy the sun. We took lots of pictures in front of the city backdrop and were psyched that we would have some pictures of us without our coats on.

We walked through the street markets. I bought a few souvenirs for some people back home and a Carnevale mask to wear to Bellinzona Rabadan Carnevale. We dropped our stuff back at the hotel, changed quickly and crossed the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza Piata for our Valentine's wine tasting. We tasted six wines, sampled cheeses, meats and bruscetta. “Edwardo” taught us what to look for in good wines and taught us a bit about the varieties in Tuscany. I bought a bottle of red wine to bring home.

We stopped to ride the carousel on the way home. Brittany, Katie and I went to the “Fish Bar” but the scene wasn't very good on Valentine's so we had a drink and went back to the hostel. The next morning Catie, Whitney and I got up early to walk to the San Miniato al Monte Church atop a hill on the outskirts of Florence. We got lost and took a right instead of a left and routed ourselves through the neighborhoods. We made it to the church 15 minutes before the service, had the chance to look around the unique split level design, and sat down for mass. The service was entirely in Italian so we only stayed 20 minutes before we left to take pictures and walk to the Piazza Michaelangelo to meet with the rest of our group.

We arrived early and were surprised to run into a crowd of Asian tourists who were on some sort of wedding tour. There were at least 10 brides getting married at the same time, taking cheesy pictures in front of the Duomo views, and throwing confetti on each other. We people watched for a while, met up with our group and grabbed spaghetti at a restaurant with a great overlook of the whole city.

We walked back through the city and caught a 4'oclock train back to Lugano!

In Dublin's Fair City...

So it has again been a pretty long time since I have blogged and I am about to leave for my second 1 week break and figured I would try to catch up on the last one week break I had off and the weekends in between.

We left snowy London and surprisingly made it out on time without any hiccups at the airport. We landed in Dublin that evening, it had been snowing there too so unfortunately all we saw from the plane was a white city vs. the green hills we were expecting. We caught a train to Killarney, which is a small town on the western part of the country.

We got in the train station late at night and had trouble finding the hostel. We immediately noticed the amazing hospitality of the Irish because the several people who we stopped to ask for directions each did the best they could to help us out, even if they didn't really know what they were talking about either.

We checked in to Neptune's hostel and asked the very kind woman at the front desk what there was to do in Killarney, she suggested a shop where we could rent bicycles and we made plans to explore the Irish countryside the next day.

We rented bikes the next morning and attempted to follow the suggested route of the owner, but he didn't know any street names and just gave us landmarks to try and follow. Needless to say we got lost several times, but the whole point of the day was to explore the countryside and that is definitely what we did. We made it to Ross Castle and rode through a golf course along Muckross lake. The green countryside and the views of the lake were just as I pictured Ireland to be. It started to get chilly so we rode back to the town and warmed up with some Irish Coffee and Guinness Stew.

The town is sort of sleepy in the wintertime, and we decided to take advantage of being in an English speaking country and went to the local movie theater. Sarah, Amanda and I went to Slumdog Millionare. I was excited because I had just purchased “Q&A” which was the inspirations for the movie. I loved the movie, and the book was great too...but if you read and watch...don't expect them to be similar. The movie is very loosely based on the book.

The next morning we ate a “Traditional” Irish breakfast at a cafe near the hostel, packed up and left for Dublin. We arrived in the rain and took a taxi from the train station to the hotel. We were all very excited to be staying in a hotel for the next two nights. Amanda and I shared a room with our own bathroom. We freshened up a bit as we drank tea and watched some TV in English. All of the European countries have MTV, whose trashy reality shows give a great impression as to how real Americans lead their lives, no wonder all the Europeans think we are so crazy.

The weather cleared up a bit so we decided to explore our part of town. We were in a fabulous location, right near St. Steven's Green and the Borough St. shopping district. We ate noodles and soup at Wagamama's Asian cuisine restaurant, most of us were starting to get a little sick and worn out so the soup was a nice temporary remedy.

I came down with a fever that night and wasn't feeling very well the rest of our time in Dublin, but I pushed through it because I didn't want to miss anything. We woke up early the next morning and bought tickets for the Hop-on-hop-off (HoHo) bus tour. We listened to the commentary and rode it to Christ Church where we learned about its unique history and toured the crypts below it.

We jumped back on the bus and rode it to the Guinness Storehouse. We learned about the production of beer and the qualities that make Guinness unique. The tour included a pint at the Gravity Bar with a panoramic view of the city. We relaxed for a little while before facing the cold outside to wait for the bus. We rode and listed to the history of Dublin as the bus followed its touristy route back to Temple Bar. We ate dinner at the Bear and Castle pub and walked around for a bit. My fever was starting to make me feel really tired so we went back to the hotel and called it a very early night.

After about 12 hours of sleep I was feeling much better the next morning. We packed our things, put them in the hotel's luggage storage and explored the city by foot. We stopped in the shops on Burough street and picked up some Irish Rugby shirts, the French/Irish rugby match was later that day and we wanted to make sure everyone knew who we were supporting. We walked by the Liffey river and through Temple Bar, making our way to the National Museum of Archeology. The bog body exhibit displayed men who had been preserved for hundreds of years in the rich Irish soil. Everything was still in tact, you could see the pore in their skin, their fingernails and the wrinkles on their hands. It was amazing.

We continued exploring the streets of Dublin and stopped at Burdock's Chipper for some real, newspaper wrapped fish and chips. Yummy! We ate them on the steps of the city hall, which attracted a bunch of pigeons who were bugging us for our leftovers.

We made our way back to Temple Bar for the start of the Rugby match. The pubs were packed and it was very exciting. We met some nice Irish women who explained the game to us and we drank Guinness and Jameson as we cheered Ireland on. We stayed at the pub until midnight, made our way back to the hotel to grab our things and go to the airport. Our flight was at 8 the next morning, so we decided to arrive the night before, save on a night in the hotel and sleep in the airport. I fell asleep on a couch near Starbucks. We checked in to RyanAir at 6 and were on our way back to Lugano!

We had to catch a train from Milan. I used the hole in the ground toilet at the station and somehow broke the lock when I shut the door. I got stuck and had to get the police to let me out. It was simultaneously the scariest and funniest moment of the trip. We made it safely back to the Montarina after that little hiccup. It felt nice to be “home” after a whole week of traveling!