Sorry for the delay! Internet is a bit tricky to come by sometimes. Prepare for a long one! I haven't added all the pictures yet...internet has been a slow. But with the parents here and them pestering me about my blog, thought I could at least get most of it up!
Wednesday was my last full day at the villa. Grace, Heather, and I went into Florence one last time and meandered around, meeting up with one of Grace’s friends. We went to Santa Croce where the Italy TRL awards were and watched for a bit. There were rumors of Lady Gaga showing up, so we wanted to check it out. Then we headed back to the villa and I enjoyed my last meal from Bruno, pasta Bolognese, one of my favorites. There were a few tears shed after dinner as I said goodbye to some people who were headed into Florence for the night. My last night was spent sitting around talking and getting gelato with some of my favorite girls at the villa. The past four months spent there are definitely some I will forever remember, for all the good, and even all the not so good. It will go down as probably the best four months of my life.
The next morning before the sun was up Heather and I headed to the train station to begin our travels. First stop, Lucerne, Switzerland. The train ride was absolutely gorgeous with views of the countryside and Alps. We arrived in Lucerne in the early afternoon and got ourselves settled at the hostel, and then went out to explore. We got lunch along the lake where the coasters were nonetheless than battleship grids! Heather and I decided this was a must, and after being down by not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN ships, I made a miraculous come back for the win! Seeing as I never win games, this one is going down in the books. The rest of the afternoon we spent walking along the lake, stopping at a park to relive our childhood and teeter-totter, and basking in the sun, as per usual. Since we had only gotten about 3 hours of sleep the night before, we called it an early night. However, these “early nights” seem to be a trend over the course of our travels. We decided we couldn’t handle another spring break or we may just collapse.
I won battleship!
Lake Lucerne
Boat house?
I love tulips.
Heather teeter tottering
The next day we awoke with the birdies and set out on conquering Lucerne. We headed over the bridge to the “Old City” where we went to see about nine tours from the medieval times. Then we wandered over to the Sleeping Lion statue that was so raved about in the online articles we had read. Some visitors even went so far as to say it was very moving and they got tears in their eyes. Heather and I didn’t produce any tears, but it was pretty cool. It was a giant lion carved into the side of a mountain, or what I assume was a mountain cliff side. It was much bigger than I had envisioned. After the lion experience, it was time for a boat ride around the lake. The water was so clear and blue. If I don’t return back to the States, you just may find me hiding out in one of the houses on Lake Lucerne. After all this, it was still pretty early in the afternoon, and there was not much left to see. We took this opportunity to put on our swimsuits and lay in the park across our hostel where it seemed the rest of the population was out tanning. Three hours and a slight case of sunburn later, we went and found some dinner, then hopped on a train to our next stop: Freiburg, Germany!
Heather and I
Well that's pretty.
Medieval tower wall
Lucerne and the Alps in the background
Heather and I, plus pink coat lady who wouldn't move with the Sleeping Lion
Boat tour!
If I don't come home you can find me in one of these houses..
Since it wouldn’t be a trip without some sort of mishap, Heather and I got on the first class portion of the train. We must have missed the giant “1” signs and the large, plush seats. We just assumed Swiss trains were nicer than Italian ones. Wouldn’t be all that surprising. After making ourselves nice and comfortable in a little cabin of seats for “netbook use,” the ticket man came by. He kindly asked for our tickets, which we showed him, then he gave us a funny look and asked for our first class upgrades. At this point we played (actually, we really just were) dumb Americans and said “oh! This is first class? I had no idea. We’ll just move.” We gathered our belongings and headed to the next carriage, entitled Quiet Zone, with the same comfy chairs. We put our stuff away, and were just about settled when the ticket man walked in and said “Don’t you see the ‘1”!?,” which of course, we had not. Finally, we lugged our bags, which were feeling very heavy at this point, through many carriages, past the dining cart, and finally to our second class seats, with nice, petite chairs. Finally. Around midnight we rolled into Freiburg, where Heather’s friend from home met us at the train station and accompanied us back to her apartment where we would be staying.
We slept in until a fabulous 11:30, then rolled out of bed and set out on a tour of Freiburg with our own personal guide, Emily. She’s been in Germany since September and is just about fluent in German, so she explained many cultural and language things to us while showing us around. It was quite nice to be in a place where there is actual organization. Italy could learn a thing or two from the Germans. We walked around town, through the market, and to the cathedral, which of course we decided to climb to the top. If I had a dime for every thing I’ve climbed, I swear I could buy a house, or a horse, or both. Post climb it was definitely time for some German beer so we went to a café and enjoyed the beautiful weather. That night we decided to make our own dinner—some type of German noodles and fruit salad. It was so nice to be in a kitchen again!
The next morning we headed to the train station nice and early. And to go along with the theme of my semester, I fell down the stairs leaving the apartment. Classic. With only slightly damaged pride, we made our way to the station and took an hour long train to Baden-Baden (laugh at this name, I did), then a short bus ride to Karlsruhe. Here I need to make note of the efficiency of the Germans. There was construction around Baden-Baden, so there were no outgoing trains. I am worried about this going into it, because I know in Italy people would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Not the case here. After getting off the train, there were people standing nearby ushering everyone to the buses across the street, which they loaded up in order, then drove to Karlsruhe, where they directed everyone back to the train station. Then we took a six hour-long train to Berlin and by the time we got to our hostel it was after five. We walked around a bit then found some dinner. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant, of course. As much as I complain about the Italians, there is one thing they have right and that is food. The Germans got the Italian food pretty well, though truly nothing compares to Bruno at the Villa. Oh, and Happy Easter to us at this point! We ate gummy bears and chocolate to celebrate.
Monday morning we got up early and set off to dominate Berlin in one day. First stop, the Jewish museum. The museum was pretty cool, much more modern than I was expecting, but full of so much history of the Jewish religion and culture. After the museum, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, where people had to check in when going from East to West, or vice versa. From there we headed to this famous piazza, or as Germans call is a “platz.” At this point we have gotten very good at asking strangers to take pictures of us. Next stop was the Holocaust Memorial. After the memorial, we walked around a bit more, saw the main cathedral, and a few other monuments. From there we headed back across the city to the East Side Gallery portion of the Berlin Wall (probably the most famous). My camera got a pretty good workout at this point. Dinner was a brat and beer. Dad should be proud, digging into my German roots. After all the walking, Heather and I were completely exhausted, and once again headed back to the hostel for an early night.
We headed to Munich the next morning and got to our hostel in the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around, not really doing any site seeing. We ate an early dinner at this small German restaurant. We both had some form of breaded pork, which was delicious, but made us feel a bit sick afterwards. So that called for some laying down time for a couple hours. We went to the first beer garden in Munich that night, the Hofbrauhaus. This was quite the event trying to find, our map was just a bit off. But we finally did and enjoyed some very large beers.
On the last day of our journey, we went to Dachau Concentration camp, the first concentration camp of the Holocaust. The day was cold and rainy, and the mood really seemed to fit what we were seeing. It’s something everyone learns about in school, but being there and seeing it in person was so eye opening and completely heart wrenching. After spending a few hours there, we headed back into Munich and walked around the city, visiting some of the sites. My favorite was the surfing area. How bizarre is it that there is a place to surf in the middle of gardens in Munich? We thought about joining in, but then saw the sign for “experienced surfers only.” That was my cue that I was not to try, but I am questioning where these Germans learn to surf? Who knows. After the gardens we realized we still had quite a bit of time, so we ventured over to the Olympic park (where dun dun dun...the Olympics were hosted). However, it began to torrential downpour about the same time we got off the train, so we quickly took a few pictures without getting too close then headed back to the hostel.
That night we took a night train back to Florence. We of course didn’t rent beds because one it was cheaper, and two all the other trains we had been on were so nice, with ample leg room and even outlets. This of course turned out to be some janky train that made so much noise throughout the entire night. We were in a little room of six seats. We kept trying to get the door to stay shut and block out some of the noise, but it just kept opening up. Finally I decided to tie the curtain through the door knob. This broke later in the night when one of the train workers opened the door to check tickets (for the third time, at 4am). One of the men in our cabin crafted some sort of folded cardboard and stuck it up in the door. This seemed to work for the rest of the trip. We couldn’t communicate with each other because of language barriers, but we were all laughing hysterically every time the door slammed open and shut with the vicious movements of the train. And at 6:30 am we arrived back in Florence and the first leg of my post-program travels are complete!!
