General notice: So I know my English in this blog is terrible- I try to read stuff over and screen for some of the worse mistakes, but I still miss a lot. I forget words in English too now, it’s terrible. You’d think my Spanish would be getting better and my English worse, so they’d even out a bit, but it just seems like my English is getting worse, and that’s it… Apologies for the atrocious English…
During the two weeks after fall break, I had some papers due, 4 scholarships to apply for, a few midterm exams, 800 pictures to upload and tag, a mountain of laundry to wash, and an election to follow. It was rather busy. Election Day was crazy, or rather, Election Night, since all the exciting stuff was happening from 12-6:30 am my time, and I don’t have access to a tv, so I had to keep refreshing the internet every few minutes. Of course at this time, the internet decided it would be the perfect time to break on me. At the same time I was supposed to be editing a 10 page history paper... What ended up happening was I fell asleep for a half an hour about every hour, and finally went to sleep for good around 4:30 am my time, without finishing my paper, once Obama had won 200 or so electoral votes. I figure he was going to be ok then, but asked my mom to call me when it was official.
Apparently my mom called me around 6:00 to tell me, and I answered the phone and talked to her, but I completely don’t remember. So I woke up at 7:45, approximately when I should be eating, and had to quickly put the finishing touches on my essay, shower, get to IES early and print my paper. I was not very awake all day. Spain is obsessed with American politics, so Obama was on the front page of every newspaper, but I really wish I could have been home then. It was just really strange to walk around and feel filled with energy and like something is different, when everyone around you is going on as if it’s just another boring day. I slept a lot on Thursday (:
This past weekend we had Friday off, so I went up to Copenhagen, Denmark to see Ariella and Stephanie from Case. My (extremely expensive) flight left on Thursday afternoon, and after almost missing my connecting flight in Zurich, I got into Copenhagen, where Ariella met me in the airport. We took the metro and bus back to her place, a collegium, or dorm for Danish students. Her dorm was really strange, it was called Keops, and was made up of singles, with doors that opened to the outside. Instead of having hallways inside, the hallways were outside, where it was freezing cold.
But the room itself was nice sized, with a little mini kitchen, AND the bathroom had heated floor tiles. I was really excited about that last part for some reason… We just stayed up late that night talked and caught up- it was just nice to be around someone who’s known me for more than 3 months.
The next morning we got up and took the bus to downtown Copenhagen to walk down the pedestrian street with all of the shops. We stopped in a few of them and I bought a new hat, since it was ridiculously cold there. As we kept walking we went by the Round Tower, the Rundetårn in Danish, and took a quick look inside Helligaands Kirken. Ariella had me buy some Danish pastries, which were delicious, and also try a bunch of different types of licorice, which were apparently “very Danish” but in my opinion, very disgusting.
We got lunch at a kebab place near where she’s got class, and the guy made me order in Danish. Apparently Ariella goes there a lot, and so do a lot of students, so since he guy there knows that it’s all students, he makes them order in Danish. He would be like “Do you want cucumber?” And wouldn’t do anything unless you said “Yes, I want cucumber please, or no I do not want cucumber, thank you.” When I went “mmhmm” for yes to something, he was like “No, no mmhmm,” and repeated whatever it was I was supposed t say in Danish. It was funny.
Danish itself is funny… it sounds sort of like you’re gagging and about to be sick when it is spoken, and it apparently isn’t pronounced anything like how it’s written. Also they don’t have a word for please- you just say thank you after everything, like “Could you move your chair, thank you?” Interesting. So we ate where Ariella had classes, and I said hi to Stephanie, who knew I was there. I also said hi to 2 other Case kids I know who are studying there as well, and who were really surprised to see me in Copenhagen.
Then Ariella had a health and disease class, so I went with her and studied for my Catalan test while she took notes. It was kind of nice to have a science class, but I found her professors more interesting- they were 2 Danish residents from the hospital that the classes were at. They barely had accents. For most Danish people, when they speak English, it doesn’t really sound like they have an accent, but rather that they just speak a little bit different, like maybe they had a slight speech impediment as a little kid that they’re over now. The younger people have even more perfect English, and even know all of our slang, because their TV is actually all American shows, that are still in the original English- they’re not even dubbed or subtitled in Danish. That makes me feel pretty unaccomplished, language wise…
After her class we went grocery shopping, headed back to the dorm, cooked dinner, and chatted some more. Stephanie and her friend Katie came over, and we caught up, and got ready to go out. They all knew this girl named Karen, and it was her birthday, so they were all meeting up at Studenthuset, the bar for Copenhagen students. They had me drink something that pretty much tasted like mouthwash- again, something “Very Danish” to make the most of my time there, and we chatted with some of their Danish and Finnish friends from the Copenhagen Business School. There were plans for a dance club, but for some reason there was a cover charge (there wasn’t supposed to be), and it was late, so we just headed back and crashed.
On Saturday, about 30 minutes after we were supposed to, we got up and headed out to be touristy for the day. The day started at Rosenburg Palace, where the royal gardens and the treasury are located. Denmark still has a figurehead royal family, who everyone there loves, so she still had a lot of the jewels, but the ones that she had given to the museum were gorgeous. I want to steal aaaaall of them! The palace itself was also very pretty on the inside, although a big dark. Because it’s so cold there, all of the walls were covered either in giant tapestries, or gilt leather.
From there we went over to the harbor, where all of the pretty pictures of Copenhagen are taken. Unfortunately, it was raining and cloudy and freezing all weekend, my pictures aren’t as pretty, but they’re still cute. It’s this one part of the canal that has a bunch of boats moored by the side, and it lined on either side by multicolor houses. Along the canal there was actually set up a little Christmas market, with Christmas carols being played by the post office band and lots of people wandering around. There Ariella had me try a Pølser, which is again, “very Danish.” It’s pretty much just a hot dog, with everything on it.
Afterwards we continued past Frederikskirken to Amelienborg Palace, where the royal family lives today. Queen Margareth was actually not home, but since we couldn’t go in anyways, we went to the shore and walking along to the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is the symbol of Copenhagen, and about the size of a normal person. It’s head and arm have been cut off before and it’s been spray paint and in general abused, but somehow it’s still a symbol of the city.
Then we looped back around toward the Danish National Museum (Nationalmuseet), went by an Anglican stone church and soldier’s barracks on the way, and stayed at the museum till it closed. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant and went back to her place. Later on we met up with a few of her friends at a local club, called Rust to go dancing.
Clubs there are very different than in Barcelona… apparently bar culture is so strong that when people go to clubs, they just stand around the bar and talk- the only guys on the dance floor are usually foreigners. In general Copenhagen seemed less European than everywhere else I’ve been- people actually give you personal space, guys don’t do the manpurse thing, nor do they dance, and of course everyone speaks perfect English. Strange…
On Sunday morning I packed up all of my stuff and we went over to the island that the airport is on (which is still part of Copenhagen), and met up with a Danish friend of Ariella’s. He lives in Christianshavn, the harbor area of the island, and he had offered to walk us around Christiania since Ariella hadn’t been there either. Christiania is interesting… It’s this town of 850ish people that’s right in the middle of Copenhagen, and is sort of self-governing. In the 70s the area was unoccupied army barracks, and so the people who lived near broke in and started building stuff there. It eventually turned into a squatter’s town, where people governed themselves and just built houses on the land. It actually made for some really interesting architecture, since everything there was done by hand, as cars are prohibited there. Around the area encircling Christiania we stopped into a few other churches, and then I hopped onto the metro toward the airport.
viernes, 21 de noviembre de 2008
jueves, 20 de noviembre de 2008
Fall Break- Rome
On Thursday morning we went over to the train station around 8 to catch our train to Rome. The ride was only about 45 minutes and relatively uneventful, unless you count Alex getting on the completely wrong train… It’s alright, somehow he ended up in Rome 10 minutes after we did. So we go down to the metro to head over to our hostel, but for some reason it’s packed. Can’t turn around in one spot without getting pushed in some direction by mobs of people packed. This was, of course, not actually IN the metro, but on the platform thing that you wait at before getting on. I was afraid people were going to accidentally push people onto the tracks…
The mobs were composed of a lot of kids- anywhere from elementary to university age, and some older adults carrying flags and whistles. Everyone was singing and yelling, and some people had drums and were banging them, and there was just a lot of noise in general. 2 metro train things had to go by before we finally got on, and even then, we were still smashed up next to people with our suitcases. Since there were so many people around, we decided to pretend to be Spanish.
The metro cleared out pretty quick, and we noticed this group of 3ish Italian guys across from us. I’ve never actually heard Italian being spoken before, so I didn’t know how easy it is to understand when you’re paying attention… well they were trying to guess where we were from, since it was obviously from the suitcases that we were foreigners. They decided we were Spanish, and one of them finally asked Lindsey if we were Italian. When she told them that we were American, they were really surprised, and started yelling things in English- “I love you!” and “50 cent!” It was just gratifying to be able to pass as Spanish… At the hostel (really a camping ground- Camping Village Roma), we checked in, grabbed lunch, and went back into town.
The metro was again still packed- at lunch we had seen the news and learned that the tons of people we saw we actually protesters- the Italian government was considering privatizing their entire educational system, so teachers all across the city had taken their students out of class (they were supposed to have school that day), and took them downtown to several plazas and the middle of the city to protest. I guess the whistles and flags were to make sure that all the classes stayed together. Anyways, there were so many people that the Italian government actually closed a few metro stations in order to stop more protesters from showing up there. There were police all over the place and the Italian version of the Green Berets running around.
We wandered around once we got off the metro, and eventually found our way to the Trevi Fountain. I threw in a coin- so I’ll go back someday! Of course, I’ll probably be 80 by the time I can travel again, but whatever. From there we went up the Spanish Steps, walked an obelisk with hieroglyphics on it, passed by the Column of Traja (which we couldn’t get near, because the green beret guys had blocked that plaza off), and ended at the Pantheon. It actually just started to pour as we walked into the Pantheon, so we had pretty good timing. You could see the rain coming through the big hole in the ceiling, and they had the area right under the hole roped off, where the rain was getting all over the marble floors. It was pretty cool looking.
We kept walking and passed by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and by that time it had cleared up a little bit, so we weren’t getting as wet. We passed by the Roman Forum and the Arch of Constantine to get to the Capitoline Museum. The Capitoline Museum was all statues, so there were lots of old Roman and Greek busts, huge statues of Athena and Apollo, giant feet and hands that had broken off of larger stuff, and the bronze statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf was there. Do you know how old that thing is? It’s from like the 5th century B.C!! OLD. Lindsey and I took some awkward pictures next to it…
After the museum we found an out of the way restaurant, with great food, and the most hilarious waiter. It was this old guy, with this giant white beard, who was trying to teach us words in Italian. He actually spoke Spanish, so we just ordered that way. The entire week actually, in both Switzerland and Italy I was kind of surprised to find that our Spanish was usually just as useful as English, if not more so. After the restaurant there was a hookah bar just a few doors down, so we chilled on the pillows there and got desert. Mmm, baklava…
Around 11:15 ish we started walking toward the metro, which was really far away, hoping to catch it before they closed. On the way there some people at the front walked really fast, and ended up getting separated from the slowpokes in the back (me, Grant, Lindsey). Of course, I was the only person with a working phone, and when we got to the metro, it was not only closed (at like 11:45), but the rest of our group was nowhere to be seen. Lovely. We just grabbed a taxi, and hoped that they had either made the metro before it closed, or would think to get a taxi too. Of course, it would have been easier if someone other than me had brought a phone…
Back at the hostel we had to wait around for them to get back, since my stuff was in one of their tents: since there were 7 of us, and the tents were 3-person occupancy, one of us was the odd man out, and might be sleeping with random strangers. That person was me. I had put my stuff in one of our other tents just so no one else could get to them. It was colder than I thought it would be that night, since it had been raining all day, so sleeping was not really that fun…
The next day we got up really early, grabbed breakfast, and went over to the Vatican, since we had heard a lot about the terrible terrible lines that are there. When we got there around 9 there were enough people, but not enough to be forming a real sort of a line, so we went to the Vatican Museum first. The museum is pretty much just a walk through the different rooms and hallways of the Vatican… except it feels like a museum, because every tiny surface, the ceilings and the walls and the floor are covered in such exquisite detail that I can’t imagine anyone actually living here. Of everywhere I have been so far, there has been nothing so rich as the Vatican.
You walk through the different hallways, with their gold encrusted walls, 20 by 20 feet paintings, and rooms down completely by Raphael, and you can sort of see how some rooms have ropes at the entrances for when it’s so completely packed that they have to move people through like cattle. It wasn’t like that for us, and we got to the Sistine Chapel on our own time, not being slowed down by people in font, or pushed by people behind.
We stepped into the Sistine Chapel, and to be honest, I was kind of surprised by how small it was. I guess I have been so used to all of the Gothic style churches, with their huge windows and giant doors that I expected something like that. It was about the size of my church at home, a little bit longer lengthwise though, and obviously way more elegant. The thing that was to be impressed by was that ever surface, on the walls and the ceiling, every single little surface was covered by the originals done by Michelangelo and Botticelli, among others. Also the way that Michelangelo had to get the proportions right on the curved ceiling in order for them to look normal from the floor was amazing for his time.
From there we went back outside to go to St. Peters Basilica, but by that time- around 12- there were so many people that there was a big line. There was also a huge line for the museum; while we got to walk how we wanted, the people in line were going to be in line throughout the whole museum, and some of them were stretched out the door, and around the wall encircling the Vatican itself.
Afterwards we jumped onto the metro and went to the Coliseum. We were lucky again to miss the worst of the lines, and were able to wander around pretty easily. It was actually really pretty- you could see though the main playing arena, to where the animals and the gladiators used to be held, and it now had grass growing in the different cells- it was actually very pretty. Right across from the Coliseum were Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, with lots of ruins that we walked around. There were a few different temples, the ruins of the emperor’s residence, and the Stadium of Domitian. The stadium was my favorite.
We grabbed dinner somewhere, walked around some plaza that is good for nightlife to see everyone in their Halloween costumes, and went back to the hostel. The journey back to the hostel was not cool, since once we got to the metro, the bus running back and forth from our metro stop to the camping place was no longer running, so we had to walk like a mile in the rain, past some hookers… you know… And then in my tent there was this random guy sleeping when I got in there, so I had Lindsey sleep in the other bed just in case.
The next morning we got up early, packed our stuff, and headed over to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s Basilica. Someone needed to stay outside with bags, and my feet were killing me, so I just sat out and read. It had finally gotten nice out, and there was a marathon going on, and it was just good to have some alone time. 7 forms of transportation and about just as many hours later, I was back in Barcelona, and exhausted.
The end!
The mobs were composed of a lot of kids- anywhere from elementary to university age, and some older adults carrying flags and whistles. Everyone was singing and yelling, and some people had drums and were banging them, and there was just a lot of noise in general. 2 metro train things had to go by before we finally got on, and even then, we were still smashed up next to people with our suitcases. Since there were so many people around, we decided to pretend to be Spanish.
The metro cleared out pretty quick, and we noticed this group of 3ish Italian guys across from us. I’ve never actually heard Italian being spoken before, so I didn’t know how easy it is to understand when you’re paying attention… well they were trying to guess where we were from, since it was obviously from the suitcases that we were foreigners. They decided we were Spanish, and one of them finally asked Lindsey if we were Italian. When she told them that we were American, they were really surprised, and started yelling things in English- “I love you!” and “50 cent!” It was just gratifying to be able to pass as Spanish… At the hostel (really a camping ground- Camping Village Roma), we checked in, grabbed lunch, and went back into town.
The metro was again still packed- at lunch we had seen the news and learned that the tons of people we saw we actually protesters- the Italian government was considering privatizing their entire educational system, so teachers all across the city had taken their students out of class (they were supposed to have school that day), and took them downtown to several plazas and the middle of the city to protest. I guess the whistles and flags were to make sure that all the classes stayed together. Anyways, there were so many people that the Italian government actually closed a few metro stations in order to stop more protesters from showing up there. There were police all over the place and the Italian version of the Green Berets running around.
We wandered around once we got off the metro, and eventually found our way to the Trevi Fountain. I threw in a coin- so I’ll go back someday! Of course, I’ll probably be 80 by the time I can travel again, but whatever. From there we went up the Spanish Steps, walked an obelisk with hieroglyphics on it, passed by the Column of Traja (which we couldn’t get near, because the green beret guys had blocked that plaza off), and ended at the Pantheon. It actually just started to pour as we walked into the Pantheon, so we had pretty good timing. You could see the rain coming through the big hole in the ceiling, and they had the area right under the hole roped off, where the rain was getting all over the marble floors. It was pretty cool looking.
We kept walking and passed by the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and by that time it had cleared up a little bit, so we weren’t getting as wet. We passed by the Roman Forum and the Arch of Constantine to get to the Capitoline Museum. The Capitoline Museum was all statues, so there were lots of old Roman and Greek busts, huge statues of Athena and Apollo, giant feet and hands that had broken off of larger stuff, and the bronze statue of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf was there. Do you know how old that thing is? It’s from like the 5th century B.C!! OLD. Lindsey and I took some awkward pictures next to it…
After the museum we found an out of the way restaurant, with great food, and the most hilarious waiter. It was this old guy, with this giant white beard, who was trying to teach us words in Italian. He actually spoke Spanish, so we just ordered that way. The entire week actually, in both Switzerland and Italy I was kind of surprised to find that our Spanish was usually just as useful as English, if not more so. After the restaurant there was a hookah bar just a few doors down, so we chilled on the pillows there and got desert. Mmm, baklava…
Around 11:15 ish we started walking toward the metro, which was really far away, hoping to catch it before they closed. On the way there some people at the front walked really fast, and ended up getting separated from the slowpokes in the back (me, Grant, Lindsey). Of course, I was the only person with a working phone, and when we got to the metro, it was not only closed (at like 11:45), but the rest of our group was nowhere to be seen. Lovely. We just grabbed a taxi, and hoped that they had either made the metro before it closed, or would think to get a taxi too. Of course, it would have been easier if someone other than me had brought a phone…
Back at the hostel we had to wait around for them to get back, since my stuff was in one of their tents: since there were 7 of us, and the tents were 3-person occupancy, one of us was the odd man out, and might be sleeping with random strangers. That person was me. I had put my stuff in one of our other tents just so no one else could get to them. It was colder than I thought it would be that night, since it had been raining all day, so sleeping was not really that fun…
The next day we got up really early, grabbed breakfast, and went over to the Vatican, since we had heard a lot about the terrible terrible lines that are there. When we got there around 9 there were enough people, but not enough to be forming a real sort of a line, so we went to the Vatican Museum first. The museum is pretty much just a walk through the different rooms and hallways of the Vatican… except it feels like a museum, because every tiny surface, the ceilings and the walls and the floor are covered in such exquisite detail that I can’t imagine anyone actually living here. Of everywhere I have been so far, there has been nothing so rich as the Vatican.
You walk through the different hallways, with their gold encrusted walls, 20 by 20 feet paintings, and rooms down completely by Raphael, and you can sort of see how some rooms have ropes at the entrances for when it’s so completely packed that they have to move people through like cattle. It wasn’t like that for us, and we got to the Sistine Chapel on our own time, not being slowed down by people in font, or pushed by people behind.
We stepped into the Sistine Chapel, and to be honest, I was kind of surprised by how small it was. I guess I have been so used to all of the Gothic style churches, with their huge windows and giant doors that I expected something like that. It was about the size of my church at home, a little bit longer lengthwise though, and obviously way more elegant. The thing that was to be impressed by was that ever surface, on the walls and the ceiling, every single little surface was covered by the originals done by Michelangelo and Botticelli, among others. Also the way that Michelangelo had to get the proportions right on the curved ceiling in order for them to look normal from the floor was amazing for his time.
From there we went back outside to go to St. Peters Basilica, but by that time- around 12- there were so many people that there was a big line. There was also a huge line for the museum; while we got to walk how we wanted, the people in line were going to be in line throughout the whole museum, and some of them were stretched out the door, and around the wall encircling the Vatican itself.
Afterwards we jumped onto the metro and went to the Coliseum. We were lucky again to miss the worst of the lines, and were able to wander around pretty easily. It was actually really pretty- you could see though the main playing arena, to where the animals and the gladiators used to be held, and it now had grass growing in the different cells- it was actually very pretty. Right across from the Coliseum were Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, with lots of ruins that we walked around. There were a few different temples, the ruins of the emperor’s residence, and the Stadium of Domitian. The stadium was my favorite.
We grabbed dinner somewhere, walked around some plaza that is good for nightlife to see everyone in their Halloween costumes, and went back to the hostel. The journey back to the hostel was not cool, since once we got to the metro, the bus running back and forth from our metro stop to the camping place was no longer running, so we had to walk like a mile in the rain, past some hookers… you know… And then in my tent there was this random guy sleeping when I got in there, so I had Lindsey sleep in the other bed just in case.
The next morning we got up early, packed our stuff, and headed over to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s Basilica. Someone needed to stay outside with bags, and my feet were killing me, so I just sat out and read. It had finally gotten nice out, and there was a marathon going on, and it was just good to have some alone time. 7 forms of transportation and about just as many hours later, I was back in Barcelona, and exhausted.
The end!
martes, 18 de noviembre de 2008
Fall Break- Florence
Yes, I'm still extremely behind on telling things... so here we go..
After the long train ride, we got into Florence in the late afternoon. We stayed at Hostel Harmony, which was behind the train station, but well priced and only about a 20 minute walk from the Duomo. The Duomo is this gigantic church that has the most intricate façade that I have seen. I could probably rock-climb up the front, if I was allowed. It’s right across from the Baptistery, with its famous golden door- it was made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, who competed against other artists for the right, and died even before it was finished.
We decided to do the Uffizi Museum and the Galleria, since it was getting dark out. The Galleria is actually a small covered section outside, with the originals of Perseus and Medusa and The Rape of the Sabine Woman. There were a few other sculptures there, but none of them were labeled, so I have no idea what they are or who they are by… which in unfortunate, since there is a pretty high chance that they’re famous somehow. That’s what I get for never taking an art history class…
The Uffizi Museum has a very large art collection from the Renaissance, so we were there until they closed. The two things that stuck out in that museum were the Birth of Venus, and la Primavera by Botticelli. There were a lot of works there by Vasari as well.
That night we headed back up the main street toward our hostel, but stopped off somewhere for dinner first. Yay for Italian food!!!! Later on we headed back out to meet some of Alex’s friends, who happened to be in Florence at the same time that we were. They took us to some Irish pub, which I was kind of annoyed about- I mean, we were in Italy, why weren’t we going to an Italian place? Oh well…
The next day we got up early and started off at the Medici Palace. The outside was actually not that impressive, but inside it was ridiculous. On the first floor they had some old Medici church stuff, which included a lot of reliquaries. There were two glass goblets, each with a vertebra in them, a glass and gilt box with an entire lower jaw, and a thin tube with what looked like an ulna suspended on the inside. Very strange. The next level of the palace was extremely opulent- it was the Medici’s private chapel, and now houses the remains of Lorenzo di Medici the Magnificent, the Medici who inspired Machiavelli’s The Prince. The sepulchers were adorned with sculptures by Michelangelo and others. The chapel was having renovations done, but it was still gorgeous, The whole walls were done in marble, with extremely oversized marble figures of Medicis in alcoves in the walls. I tried to take some pictures, but got yelled at ):
The leather market is right around the corner from the Medici Palace, so we walked through there on our way to the Duomo. We wandered around inside the Duomo for a bit, which was large, but much simpler than the outside. There was a huge line for going up to the Cuppola, the dome that covers the Duomo. The line only took about a half an hour, but the walk up the Duomo took just about as long- 463 stairs! I can’t believe this whole thing was constructed more or less by hand. The stairs to the top took you on a pathway around the inside of the Cuppola, so you could look down onto the people below, and the paintings on the ceiling were very close.
The top of the Cuppola was beautiful. It was small, with a small tower in the middle. All day it had actually been kind of rainy, but once we got to the top, it cleared up, there was a strong breeze and the sun was out. It was perfect, we got up there at 12, so all of the church bells across the city were ringing. The view was worth it- you could see the entire city, with the tiled roofs, the large churches off in the distance and the hills in the background.
Then we went to the Accademia Galleria, which was surprisingly relatively small, but the whole point of going was to see the David. I had no idea it was so big- I expected it to be maybe 8 or 9 feet tall. I had to sneak a few pictures of the David, since absolutely no pictures were allowed, and if a security guard saw you, they would take your camera and delete the photo. Afterwards we walked over to St. Croce church, which also has a pretty white façade. Inside there were the remains of Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, Napoleon’s wife and Dante. Most of the carvings around their graves were done by Vasari.
It was getting sort of dark, so we finished off the day at the San Marco Museum, which is a converted 15th century convent and really pretty. It's got a ton of stuff on the inside, mostly done by people who I had never heard of though. Afterward we walked over to Pont Vecchio, which is a big crazy bridge that goes over the Arno. But it's like a bridge on steroids- it has small jewelry shops crowding both sides, so the bridge looks kind of like its going to fall down at any second. It would be a shame, considering all the jewelry on the thing. We just grabbed dinner at a grocery store, and sat by the river eating. It started to rain then, and we were exhausted, so we went back to the hostel to sleep and plan for Rome.
After the long train ride, we got into Florence in the late afternoon. We stayed at Hostel Harmony, which was behind the train station, but well priced and only about a 20 minute walk from the Duomo. The Duomo is this gigantic church that has the most intricate façade that I have seen. I could probably rock-climb up the front, if I was allowed. It’s right across from the Baptistery, with its famous golden door- it was made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, who competed against other artists for the right, and died even before it was finished.
We decided to do the Uffizi Museum and the Galleria, since it was getting dark out. The Galleria is actually a small covered section outside, with the originals of Perseus and Medusa and The Rape of the Sabine Woman. There were a few other sculptures there, but none of them were labeled, so I have no idea what they are or who they are by… which in unfortunate, since there is a pretty high chance that they’re famous somehow. That’s what I get for never taking an art history class…
The Uffizi Museum has a very large art collection from the Renaissance, so we were there until they closed. The two things that stuck out in that museum were the Birth of Venus, and la Primavera by Botticelli. There were a lot of works there by Vasari as well.
That night we headed back up the main street toward our hostel, but stopped off somewhere for dinner first. Yay for Italian food!!!! Later on we headed back out to meet some of Alex’s friends, who happened to be in Florence at the same time that we were. They took us to some Irish pub, which I was kind of annoyed about- I mean, we were in Italy, why weren’t we going to an Italian place? Oh well…
The next day we got up early and started off at the Medici Palace. The outside was actually not that impressive, but inside it was ridiculous. On the first floor they had some old Medici church stuff, which included a lot of reliquaries. There were two glass goblets, each with a vertebra in them, a glass and gilt box with an entire lower jaw, and a thin tube with what looked like an ulna suspended on the inside. Very strange. The next level of the palace was extremely opulent- it was the Medici’s private chapel, and now houses the remains of Lorenzo di Medici the Magnificent, the Medici who inspired Machiavelli’s The Prince. The sepulchers were adorned with sculptures by Michelangelo and others. The chapel was having renovations done, but it was still gorgeous, The whole walls were done in marble, with extremely oversized marble figures of Medicis in alcoves in the walls. I tried to take some pictures, but got yelled at ):
The leather market is right around the corner from the Medici Palace, so we walked through there on our way to the Duomo. We wandered around inside the Duomo for a bit, which was large, but much simpler than the outside. There was a huge line for going up to the Cuppola, the dome that covers the Duomo. The line only took about a half an hour, but the walk up the Duomo took just about as long- 463 stairs! I can’t believe this whole thing was constructed more or less by hand. The stairs to the top took you on a pathway around the inside of the Cuppola, so you could look down onto the people below, and the paintings on the ceiling were very close.
The top of the Cuppola was beautiful. It was small, with a small tower in the middle. All day it had actually been kind of rainy, but once we got to the top, it cleared up, there was a strong breeze and the sun was out. It was perfect, we got up there at 12, so all of the church bells across the city were ringing. The view was worth it- you could see the entire city, with the tiled roofs, the large churches off in the distance and the hills in the background.
Then we went to the Accademia Galleria, which was surprisingly relatively small, but the whole point of going was to see the David. I had no idea it was so big- I expected it to be maybe 8 or 9 feet tall. I had to sneak a few pictures of the David, since absolutely no pictures were allowed, and if a security guard saw you, they would take your camera and delete the photo. Afterwards we walked over to St. Croce church, which also has a pretty white façade. Inside there were the remains of Niccolo Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo, Napoleon’s wife and Dante. Most of the carvings around their graves were done by Vasari.
It was getting sort of dark, so we finished off the day at the San Marco Museum, which is a converted 15th century convent and really pretty. It's got a ton of stuff on the inside, mostly done by people who I had never heard of though. Afterward we walked over to Pont Vecchio, which is a big crazy bridge that goes over the Arno. But it's like a bridge on steroids- it has small jewelry shops crowding both sides, so the bridge looks kind of like its going to fall down at any second. It would be a shame, considering all the jewelry on the thing. We just grabbed dinner at a grocery store, and sat by the river eating. It started to rain then, and we were exhausted, so we went back to the hostel to sleep and plan for Rome.
domingo, 9 de noviembre de 2008
Fall Break- Lucerne
Monday morning we had to catch a train really early out of Zurich HB, the main train station. That meant catching a train from the Hostel at 7:35 am, having previously gotten up, eaten breakfast, packed lunch, checked out, and walked to our train stop. Well, apparently not everyone is so great at doing all of that quickly, since we ended up having to sprint down this giant hill to catch the train to Zurich HB. I guess it was good in the end... I felt like I was going to tumble over and start rolling with my bag, so I guess it helped to wake me up :D
So we had to run around the train station to jump the right train, but found it just in time, and were all set for getting to Lucerne. The ride was only about 45 minutes. I think it may have been the first time in all of our train use that someone walked by to check that we actually had tickets- the times we took the train into Zurich's Old Town, there was never anyone there to check. GUess buying that train pass was pretty much a waste of money, oh well.
We got off at Lucerne, and headed over to the hostel, which was really really close- it was just across the Reuss River, near the old city wall. Anyways we stayed at Tourist Hotel Lucerne, which was nice, and had the slogan "Lucerne is Fantastic!." Only slightly better than "Spain is different" and "Zurich- Downtown Switzerland." Since we were right up next to the remains of this old wall, we decided to head of there first after packing lunch.
The Musegg wall is what it sounds like- a wall with a walkway on top that connects lookout towers that are about 50 meters away from each other. From the top of the towers there's a pretty good view of the Alps, the Reuss River and Lake Luzern. We pretty much just climbed a bunch of stairs and took a bunch more pictures, because it was all so pretty. One thing that was sort of interesting about that wall was that there was a high school right next to it. We were actually walking on the track strip of the high school, which ran right next to the wall. There were kids outside for gym class- wouldn't it be weird to go to school and see that every day?
At the end of the wall, headed over to this big lion sculpture that is carved into a mountain, the Löwendenkmal. Zoe was in charge of Lucerne, so when she told us about the lion, I googled it to see what it looked at. Well my understanding was that it would be bigger than a normal lion, but not that big, judging from the pictures. Haha, I was very wrong. The thing is gigantic- take a look at my pictures. There's at least one with a person in the shot, so you can see just how big it is.
It's this big crying lion that had a spear sticking out of its side, and is lying over a French shield. The lion is a symbol of Switzerland, so the monument was to Swiss soldiers. So I thought- it's actually a monument to fallen Swiss mercenaries. Now I know mercenaries are still soldiers, but somehow knowing that they were mercenaries killed during the French revolution makes the whole thing less sad somehow. I mean, mercenaries?
Afterwards we went over to Hofkirche, built for the patron saint, St. Leodegar in the 1600s. It was pretty, with a giant wooden pulpit that was wound around one of the columns near the front. One thing kind of cool about this church was that you could see the old painted name placards in some pews, showing where certain people used to sit, or had given money to the church to "buy" their seat, like at a baseball stadium or something like that.
We walked over to Lake Luzern, and crossed the Reuss River over the Kappellbruke, the oldest covered bridge in Europe. Or rather, the rebuilt oldest covered bridge in Europe. Apparently about 15 years ago there was this giant fire at night that destroyed most of the wooden parts, but they reconstructed it. During the summer it must be gorgeous- it's covered with flowers, and had mountains in the background. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time that we were there. It was still pretty though.
On the other side of the river, we went into the Jesuitenkirche, another old church that looks sort of like the two bell towers are topped with giant things of garlic. I'm not sure when this one was built, but since the inside looks Baraque, it's got to be younger than the other church. Anyways the inside is all pink and white, since they used this pink marble for a lot of the inside details. This includes this giant marble and gold encrusted pulpit that's just sort of stuck onto the wall. It looks so heavy- I wish I knew how they got it to stay up there.
We crossed over another covered bridge, the Spreuerbrucke, to walk back to the hostel to rest, since it had already been a long day. The plan was to do a little more hiking afterwards. So We went back to the hostel and attempted to take a half an hour nap. This is when I learned that my watch alarm does not wake me up. Nor does it wake up Margaret, Zoe and Lindsey. Conveniently, no one else had set any sort of an alarm, so everyone woke up maybe two hours later. It was already dark, so going hiking some more was not really an option. We headed into town to eat, and just walked around, window shopping and everything.
It started to rain later on that night, so we headed pack to make sure we had all of our stuff together for the 7 hour train trip to Florence. The rain didn't go away until a couple days after we got back to Barcelona...yay. Anyways, I liked Lucerne. It's supposedly a really big tourist town, but it actually didn't feel touristy at all. Maybe it's because we were there sort of off-season, but I would suggest visiting there if you want something quiet.
So we had to run around the train station to jump the right train, but found it just in time, and were all set for getting to Lucerne. The ride was only about 45 minutes. I think it may have been the first time in all of our train use that someone walked by to check that we actually had tickets- the times we took the train into Zurich's Old Town, there was never anyone there to check. GUess buying that train pass was pretty much a waste of money, oh well.
We got off at Lucerne, and headed over to the hostel, which was really really close- it was just across the Reuss River, near the old city wall. Anyways we stayed at Tourist Hotel Lucerne, which was nice, and had the slogan "Lucerne is Fantastic!." Only slightly better than "Spain is different" and "Zurich- Downtown Switzerland." Since we were right up next to the remains of this old wall, we decided to head of there first after packing lunch.
The Musegg wall is what it sounds like- a wall with a walkway on top that connects lookout towers that are about 50 meters away from each other. From the top of the towers there's a pretty good view of the Alps, the Reuss River and Lake Luzern. We pretty much just climbed a bunch of stairs and took a bunch more pictures, because it was all so pretty. One thing that was sort of interesting about that wall was that there was a high school right next to it. We were actually walking on the track strip of the high school, which ran right next to the wall. There were kids outside for gym class- wouldn't it be weird to go to school and see that every day?
At the end of the wall, headed over to this big lion sculpture that is carved into a mountain, the Löwendenkmal. Zoe was in charge of Lucerne, so when she told us about the lion, I googled it to see what it looked at. Well my understanding was that it would be bigger than a normal lion, but not that big, judging from the pictures. Haha, I was very wrong. The thing is gigantic- take a look at my pictures. There's at least one with a person in the shot, so you can see just how big it is.
It's this big crying lion that had a spear sticking out of its side, and is lying over a French shield. The lion is a symbol of Switzerland, so the monument was to Swiss soldiers. So I thought- it's actually a monument to fallen Swiss mercenaries. Now I know mercenaries are still soldiers, but somehow knowing that they were mercenaries killed during the French revolution makes the whole thing less sad somehow. I mean, mercenaries?
Afterwards we went over to Hofkirche, built for the patron saint, St. Leodegar in the 1600s. It was pretty, with a giant wooden pulpit that was wound around one of the columns near the front. One thing kind of cool about this church was that you could see the old painted name placards in some pews, showing where certain people used to sit, or had given money to the church to "buy" their seat, like at a baseball stadium or something like that.
We walked over to Lake Luzern, and crossed the Reuss River over the Kappellbruke, the oldest covered bridge in Europe. Or rather, the rebuilt oldest covered bridge in Europe. Apparently about 15 years ago there was this giant fire at night that destroyed most of the wooden parts, but they reconstructed it. During the summer it must be gorgeous- it's covered with flowers, and had mountains in the background. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time that we were there. It was still pretty though.
On the other side of the river, we went into the Jesuitenkirche, another old church that looks sort of like the two bell towers are topped with giant things of garlic. I'm not sure when this one was built, but since the inside looks Baraque, it's got to be younger than the other church. Anyways the inside is all pink and white, since they used this pink marble for a lot of the inside details. This includes this giant marble and gold encrusted pulpit that's just sort of stuck onto the wall. It looks so heavy- I wish I knew how they got it to stay up there.
We crossed over another covered bridge, the Spreuerbrucke, to walk back to the hostel to rest, since it had already been a long day. The plan was to do a little more hiking afterwards. So We went back to the hostel and attempted to take a half an hour nap. This is when I learned that my watch alarm does not wake me up. Nor does it wake up Margaret, Zoe and Lindsey. Conveniently, no one else had set any sort of an alarm, so everyone woke up maybe two hours later. It was already dark, so going hiking some more was not really an option. We headed into town to eat, and just walked around, window shopping and everything.
It started to rain later on that night, so we headed pack to make sure we had all of our stuff together for the 7 hour train trip to Florence. The rain didn't go away until a couple days after we got back to Barcelona...yay. Anyways, I liked Lucerne. It's supposedly a really big tourist town, but it actually didn't feel touristy at all. Maybe it's because we were there sort of off-season, but I would suggest visiting there if you want something quiet.
viernes, 7 de noviembre de 2008
Fall Break- Zurich
Alright, so there is much to tell regarding the past week and a half. I'll do each city separately, since it'll break things up a little bit, and hopefully make this less confusing.
I was traveling with 6 other Americans, all other students from my program, most of whom live on my floor here at the dorm. We had Friday off, so I spent most of the day packing and all that whatnot, and Saturday afternoon we were off to the airport!
The direct flight to Zurich, Switzerland was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, I did not have a window seat, and couldn’t watch as we flew over the Pyrenees, but I caught a glimpse of this giant forest of trees when we were landing. You know I did not realize how much I missed trees until I saw that giant forest, with all of the red and gold and yellow… I mean, Barcelona has trees, but it’s Mediterranean, so the trees are either scrubby pines, palms, or these tall thin-trunked trees with really light bark that don’t appear to be doing fall properly.
Well, Switzerland had real trees. And grass. Barcelona has no fields, and the small parks it has don’t really have grass... I guess it was kind of nice to see something that looked more like home. It was also colder- the coldest it has gotten in Barcelona so far has been in the low 60s, and I didn’t think I would miss it almost snowing around Halloween, but apparently I did. We got in to the airport, money-changed (they use the Franc- crazy talk!), and walked across the street to the train station. Zurich doesn’t really have an underground system- it’s a combination of above-ground double decker trains (sort of like commuter trains to burbs in Chicago, except all of the trains actually stay in the city itself) that radiate out from the city center, and aboveground trams that run in the street, but whose routes are really only in certain geographic areas.
Anyways, we had to catch a doubledecker to Wollishofen, walked up a big hill to get to Youthostel Zurich. The hostel was nice and clean, but expensive. We headed right back into the city that night to just wander around, hoping to find somewhere interesting. Outside of the train station it was completely dead, so we kept walking, and ended up crossing the Rathausbrucke and walked toward Lake Zurich. It turns out that’s where all of the nightlife was, so we ducked into a couple of places and stayed for a while. We’re so used to Barcelona and things closing late that we were really surprised to find that bars close there around 12 or 1 am. It was good though, since the next morning we were planning on getting up early to go around the city.
The next morning we got up and took the train downtown to the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. Since the Landesmuseum- the Swiss National Museum- was right by the train station, we went there first. The museum is in one of the old palaces, and so the inside was gorgeous. They had a really large collection of prehistorical stuff, and then a lot of things from the Carolingian era of the middle ages. There was a ton of stained glass, richly carved wooden doors and ceilings, and a ton of other things from that time period. I would really suggest going there if you go to Zurich- the place is huge and you could spend a ton of time there.
From inside the museum we heard some noise around lunch, which I assumed to be coming from a church nearby. Well someone happened to look out a window of the museum that was facing the park, and saw maybe about 10 people just sort of standing there, playing these gigantic horn things. I had no idea you could make music like that with Alphorns. We pretty much ran outside of the museum to see then, and at lunch in the park while listening to them. It had gotten a lot warmer out, so we decided to walk around Old Town.
I was in charge of Zurich, and had looked up some walking tours before. We started at Bahnofplatz, the plaza in front of the railway station, and walked down the Bahnofstrasse toward Lake Zurich. On the way, we passed by Pestalozzi Park, Paradeplatz, and made a detour toward the water to see St. Peter’s Church. This church apparently had the largest clock on a belltower for all churches in Europe. It’s also the oldest church built in Zurich, having being built in either the 7th or 8th centuries. Because it was built before Gothic and Baroque architecture were the norm, its not that ornate, which was kind of refreshing.
We kept walking, up a few sidestreets as we made our way to Fraumunster. The church was actually having services, so we couldn’t go in, but just walked around the outside. Fraumunster’s also really old, having been built in the 850s, and used a convent for noblewomen. It supposedly has stained glass windows done by Marc Chagall and Augusto Giacometti.
Oh well…We passed by the Munsterbrucke bridge and Grossmunster, the other large church, as we continued down the waterfront to the lake. Near the lake, we sat down for a bit at Burkliplatz to look over the water with the mountains in the background. All of Switzerland was kind of strange, simple because I couldn’t understand what people were saying any of the time. They speak a bunch of languages there- everyone speaks English, German and French, but I mostly overheard German. I mean in Barcelona, everyone speaks Catalan, but you hear Castilian every once in a while.
Anyways, we walked through Burkliplatz to the Arboretum, and ran around in a field there for a while. Afterwards we headed up toward the train station, and crossed the Munsterbruke to Grossmunster. We went inside the church, which has this gigantic ornately carved wooden door, and were surprised to find that there an orchestra playing inside.
Afterwards, we walked up towards the train station again, crossed the Rathausbrucke, and bought some dinner at a grocery store. We headed back to the park next to the Landesmuseum to eat by the water. Since it had gotten dark about two hours before, we headed back to the hostel. We just ended up chilling all night there, since it was freeeezing outside, and Switzerland is super super expensive, plus we had to get up early to catch a train to Lucerne
I was traveling with 6 other Americans, all other students from my program, most of whom live on my floor here at the dorm. We had Friday off, so I spent most of the day packing and all that whatnot, and Saturday afternoon we were off to the airport!
The direct flight to Zurich, Switzerland was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, I did not have a window seat, and couldn’t watch as we flew over the Pyrenees, but I caught a glimpse of this giant forest of trees when we were landing. You know I did not realize how much I missed trees until I saw that giant forest, with all of the red and gold and yellow… I mean, Barcelona has trees, but it’s Mediterranean, so the trees are either scrubby pines, palms, or these tall thin-trunked trees with really light bark that don’t appear to be doing fall properly.
Well, Switzerland had real trees. And grass. Barcelona has no fields, and the small parks it has don’t really have grass... I guess it was kind of nice to see something that looked more like home. It was also colder- the coldest it has gotten in Barcelona so far has been in the low 60s, and I didn’t think I would miss it almost snowing around Halloween, but apparently I did. We got in to the airport, money-changed (they use the Franc- crazy talk!), and walked across the street to the train station. Zurich doesn’t really have an underground system- it’s a combination of above-ground double decker trains (sort of like commuter trains to burbs in Chicago, except all of the trains actually stay in the city itself) that radiate out from the city center, and aboveground trams that run in the street, but whose routes are really only in certain geographic areas.
Anyways, we had to catch a doubledecker to Wollishofen, walked up a big hill to get to Youthostel Zurich. The hostel was nice and clean, but expensive. We headed right back into the city that night to just wander around, hoping to find somewhere interesting. Outside of the train station it was completely dead, so we kept walking, and ended up crossing the Rathausbrucke and walked toward Lake Zurich. It turns out that’s where all of the nightlife was, so we ducked into a couple of places and stayed for a while. We’re so used to Barcelona and things closing late that we were really surprised to find that bars close there around 12 or 1 am. It was good though, since the next morning we were planning on getting up early to go around the city.
The next morning we got up and took the train downtown to the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. Since the Landesmuseum- the Swiss National Museum- was right by the train station, we went there first. The museum is in one of the old palaces, and so the inside was gorgeous. They had a really large collection of prehistorical stuff, and then a lot of things from the Carolingian era of the middle ages. There was a ton of stained glass, richly carved wooden doors and ceilings, and a ton of other things from that time period. I would really suggest going there if you go to Zurich- the place is huge and you could spend a ton of time there.
From inside the museum we heard some noise around lunch, which I assumed to be coming from a church nearby. Well someone happened to look out a window of the museum that was facing the park, and saw maybe about 10 people just sort of standing there, playing these gigantic horn things. I had no idea you could make music like that with Alphorns. We pretty much ran outside of the museum to see then, and at lunch in the park while listening to them. It had gotten a lot warmer out, so we decided to walk around Old Town.
I was in charge of Zurich, and had looked up some walking tours before. We started at Bahnofplatz, the plaza in front of the railway station, and walked down the Bahnofstrasse toward Lake Zurich. On the way, we passed by Pestalozzi Park, Paradeplatz, and made a detour toward the water to see St. Peter’s Church. This church apparently had the largest clock on a belltower for all churches in Europe. It’s also the oldest church built in Zurich, having being built in either the 7th or 8th centuries. Because it was built before Gothic and Baroque architecture were the norm, its not that ornate, which was kind of refreshing.
We kept walking, up a few sidestreets as we made our way to Fraumunster. The church was actually having services, so we couldn’t go in, but just walked around the outside. Fraumunster’s also really old, having been built in the 850s, and used a convent for noblewomen. It supposedly has stained glass windows done by Marc Chagall and Augusto Giacometti.
Oh well…We passed by the Munsterbrucke bridge and Grossmunster, the other large church, as we continued down the waterfront to the lake. Near the lake, we sat down for a bit at Burkliplatz to look over the water with the mountains in the background. All of Switzerland was kind of strange, simple because I couldn’t understand what people were saying any of the time. They speak a bunch of languages there- everyone speaks English, German and French, but I mostly overheard German. I mean in Barcelona, everyone speaks Catalan, but you hear Castilian every once in a while.
Anyways, we walked through Burkliplatz to the Arboretum, and ran around in a field there for a while. Afterwards we headed up toward the train station, and crossed the Munsterbruke to Grossmunster. We went inside the church, which has this gigantic ornately carved wooden door, and were surprised to find that there an orchestra playing inside.
Afterwards, we walked up towards the train station again, crossed the Rathausbrucke, and bought some dinner at a grocery store. We headed back to the park next to the Landesmuseum to eat by the water. Since it had gotten dark about two hours before, we headed back to the hostel. We just ended up chilling all night there, since it was freeeezing outside, and Switzerland is super super expensive, plus we had to get up early to catch a train to Lucerne
domingo, 2 de noviembre de 2008
I'm back from my week of traveling! I'll probably update Tuesday, since it turns out I have more things to do than I anticipated. Anyways just letting people know that I'm alive. Exhausted, but alive. In general, the trip was a combination of amazing and annoying, which I will explain soon. Pictures probably won't make it up until later either- I took 755 of them....
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