So, I made it to Italy. I spent the last two days in Luzern, Switzerland and it was beautiful. I spent a full day walking into and around the old town, which unfortunately has been modernized with modern mall type stores, which differ from the little tiendas they had ten years ago. However, I found the hotel (i think) that mom and aunt peggy and i stayed at ten years ago right on the river-lake water way. The current of the river amazed me, it was so fast. I felt like if i fell in I would be in the Adriatic Sea in no time (assuming that it eventually connected with it).
The hostels in Europe are far different than the ones in Australia. The main difference is that none of them have kitchens for public use, which is a huge downer. Im used to being able to buy cheap food and cook it myself, but so far I've spent close to 200 dollars on food alone because I have to buy all my meals, so I'm doing two meals a day and a snack in the middle to conserve money.
I've also been doing a bunch of reading. Primarily for my job which starts in Chicago on September 8th. I just finished The Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America, and I actually enjoyed it. That Buffet has a keen sense of humor, let me tell you. And he always throws in these wacky analogies which seem to make everything into perfect sense. I didn't understand a lot of the accounting chapter, which was the last chapter, but I'll cover that with my parents when I get back to Michigan.
As of now I have ten days left in Italy, but I am finding it difficult to get up and do things every day. The last two months have finally caught up to me (Australia, moving, driving to Michigan from San Diego, cruise and now backpacking through Europe on my own). I think it'd be more fun to do it with a friend.
I met a guy at the hostel tonight in Florence who's from San Luis Obispo, about two hours north of LA, which is neat. I also met a guy from New Zealand who's moving to Sienna, Italy to become a wine maker. (Neat) So he and I bought two bottles of wine to compare, one for 2.5 euro and one for 5 euro. The 2.5 euro wine was bright purple, and had a super sweet taste, but it was alright. Unfortunately I now have a very purple tongue.
I departed from them, because they went and got pizza with two guys from France, and I came to find an internet. The internet here is much more reasonably priced. I bought 5 hours for 5 euro, as opposed to Switzerland, which was more or less, 6 swedish francs (about 6 dollars) for half an hour. Unreal, right?
Anyways, so far so good. I'm going to go hunt down some gelato now and head to bed. Miss all you back home, and can't wait to get back to the good ol' U S of A.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Baltic Sea & Amsterdam
So here we go again. ! I just finished a ten day cruise around the baltic sea, with my parents and my aunt. We traveled from Copenhagen [Denmark] to Stockholm [Sweden] to Helsinki [Finland] to St. Petersberg [Russia] to Tallin [Estonia] to Gdansk/Gdynia [Poland] to Warramunde/Berlin [Germany] and then returned to Copenhagen.
Our first full day was spent at Sea, on our way to Stockholm, and I spent the first 7 hours of that day...puking. I learned my lesson, for the most part, but was just sad to spend my only day at sea, which should have been spent out by the pools sipping pina coladas, was spent in my room. :[ Props to my dad for taking care of me all day :) In mid-afternoon, I forced myself to be social and went to a wine-tasting lesson thing. However, I found the wines appalling, probably for various reasons, and left after the third glass. Have no fear though, my aunt and mom didn't let any wine go to waste.
In Stockholm, we did a hop on - hop off bus for a couple hours, and attempted to go to the Ice Bar, but were refused entry because they were only allowing those who had purchased a cruise tour package to enter at that time. Oh well, it just made me glad I visited the one in Melbourne. We also got to do a short boat ride around the harbor, as well as see the Vasa Museum. The Vasa Museum is home to the only entact warship, because warships were either blown to bits or sank to the bottom of the ocean. However, the Vasa was special because, due to the amazing builders and craftsman and planners of the ship, it sank within the first ten minutes of her maiden voyage. Therefore, they just hauled it out of the water, and now it's in an amazing museum for all to see. Could you imagine...after spending months and probably years planning and building a ship...that it just up and keels over within ten minutes? Mmm, think of all that wasted money. Anyways, I loved the city, itself. I felt Stockholm was amazingly beautiful, and was my favorite of the Northern Europe countries.
In Helsinki, we all did the Helsinki City & Cuisine Tour, where we toured the city. Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately -- it depends which way you look at it), I slept the entire bus ride. I woke up just in time for the "cuisine" part of the tour. We got to taste customary Finish traditions, which revolves around fishies. Lots and lots of smoked and marinated fishies. Poor nemo. :( Anyways, that was about it for Helsinki.
In St. Petersberg, we had two full days. My first day, I got to sleep in and in the afternoon I toured two palaces, although more or less, they're just museums now. The neat thing was that I got to see the exact cellar where Rasputin was poisoned. That was my dorky moment of the trip. However, it was quite tacky...they had up a wax exhibit of Rasputin, the duke who "attempted to" poison him and later "shot" him (from which he jumped up from the floor and ran out to the garden)...after which he was actually fatally wounded. Anyways, overall I thought it was a neat exhibit. I was rushed back to the boat at 5:30 and met up with the fam for dinner. That evening, my mom, aunt, paul (an awesome guy I met on the boat) and I went to a Russian Folk Dancing/Singing show. The dancing was unbelievable, except the typical thing for female dancers to do often is to yelp...which got quite obnoxious after awhile. But paul liked the yelps...or so he says. The singing, on the other hand, was alright, but really slow so I kept falling asleep. Day Two in Russia was spent at the Hermitage. I got to see two original paintings of Madonna by Leonardo Da Vinci, a sculpture by Michelangelo, and numerous Picasso, Rembrant, Matisse and El Greco. I thought it was pretty neat. I had some seriously obnoxious people in my group, though, which kind of put a damper on things. For instance, one of Da Vinci's paintings was "Madonna and Child", where a baby is sucking on the breast. And this woman behind me is like "ohhhh the emotion, you can feel the emotion" and she's like screaming it. And then she tells her husband "how cute is it that he's sucking on his thumb" to which he expertly replied "hunny, thats not a thumb, its a bottle" to which I replied, without a hint of annoyance I assure you, "it's a breast", before promptly walking away.
Anyways, moving on. Tallin, Estonia was pretty sweet. The city is a teeny cobblestoned street town on the Baltic Sea, with amazing architecture and lifestyles that belong to both the old times and newer modern times. I found it amazing that Estonia has just recently gained their independence (1991, I believe) and yet there cities have already been rebuilt in their post-Soviet domination era. Tallin was one of my favorite towns. :]
Gdansk, Poland was another one of my favorite tours/cities. Gdansk is located about an hours drive inland from Gdynia on the Baltic Sea. We were taken to the "main drag" where there was a marathon going on. Apparently roller blading is a huge thing there, because the majority of people who participated were riding blades. There was also numerous street vendors and cafes and shops to go to, and the tour lady pretty much gave us 2 hours of free time to do as we pleased.
The following day, my aunt and I endured a 3 hours each way train trip from the coast into Berlin. It ended up being a whole day trip, but we only got to spend 5 hours in the city, which was okay by me. I got to see the things I wanted to see, and after a couple hours I had wished I could have gone off on my own. However, I got to see the Berlin Wall remains (I even gave in to my tourist political-science major side of me and bought a piece for like 18 dollars), go on a canal tour of the city and see Checkpoint Charlie (which wasn't all that awesome). The highlight of my day came as a surprise. As part of our tour, we did a tour of the Jewish Museum, which had multiple exhibits that detailed the history of Jewish/German relations. My favorite exhibit was this art piece that took place in a "void". It's very difficult to explain this museum because everything has symbolism, but it was filled with these dead-end hallways and gaps between walls that were called voids, to symbolize the void Germany felt after the execution of 6 million Jewish people. This one void was lit by only a small sliver of light, and the floor was covered with hundreds upon hundreds of metal faces. They had been crudely cut and featured different shapes and sizes, some with two eyes, others with eyes or mouths filled in with a piece of metal. Anyways, the piece was very moving, and everyone was invited by the artist to walk on the floor of faces. As the faces clinked together, the metal clanking was the only sound you could hear. That exhibit alone made this museum one of my favorite museums I've ever visited.
We returned to Copenhagen (sadly) and spent a day in Copenhagen, with a few of my Aunt's friends who live a couple hours out of the city. On the 18th, Paul, his sister Claire, and his parents and I said our goodbyes, but we know we'll see each other again, because they live only a couple miles from my Aunt up in Danville. Anyways, overall the cruise was pretty amazing, to say the least, and I didn't even get to talk about how awesome all the food was.
As most of you know, I'm now in Amsterdam. I got here yesterday after traveling on trains from 7 am to 8 pm, and having a pretty awesome time. The weather could be a little nicer. I feel we lucked out on either getting lightly rained on or missing the rain on our cruise, but it's been a nice couple of rainy days here in Amsterdam. I leave tomorrow for Switzerland, and will either spend a night or a few hours in Zurich before heading to Luzern. Then I'll be spending the remainder of my time in Italy. Lucky me :] Hope everyone's having good summers. I'll write more from Switzerland :)
Our first full day was spent at Sea, on our way to Stockholm, and I spent the first 7 hours of that day...puking. I learned my lesson, for the most part, but was just sad to spend my only day at sea, which should have been spent out by the pools sipping pina coladas, was spent in my room. :[ Props to my dad for taking care of me all day :) In mid-afternoon, I forced myself to be social and went to a wine-tasting lesson thing. However, I found the wines appalling, probably for various reasons, and left after the third glass. Have no fear though, my aunt and mom didn't let any wine go to waste.
In Stockholm, we did a hop on - hop off bus for a couple hours, and attempted to go to the Ice Bar, but were refused entry because they were only allowing those who had purchased a cruise tour package to enter at that time. Oh well, it just made me glad I visited the one in Melbourne. We also got to do a short boat ride around the harbor, as well as see the Vasa Museum. The Vasa Museum is home to the only entact warship, because warships were either blown to bits or sank to the bottom of the ocean. However, the Vasa was special because, due to the amazing builders and craftsman and planners of the ship, it sank within the first ten minutes of her maiden voyage. Therefore, they just hauled it out of the water, and now it's in an amazing museum for all to see. Could you imagine...after spending months and probably years planning and building a ship...that it just up and keels over within ten minutes? Mmm, think of all that wasted money. Anyways, I loved the city, itself. I felt Stockholm was amazingly beautiful, and was my favorite of the Northern Europe countries.
In Helsinki, we all did the Helsinki City & Cuisine Tour, where we toured the city. Unfortunately (or not so unfortunately -- it depends which way you look at it), I slept the entire bus ride. I woke up just in time for the "cuisine" part of the tour. We got to taste customary Finish traditions, which revolves around fishies. Lots and lots of smoked and marinated fishies. Poor nemo. :( Anyways, that was about it for Helsinki.
In St. Petersberg, we had two full days. My first day, I got to sleep in and in the afternoon I toured two palaces, although more or less, they're just museums now. The neat thing was that I got to see the exact cellar where Rasputin was poisoned. That was my dorky moment of the trip. However, it was quite tacky...they had up a wax exhibit of Rasputin, the duke who "attempted to" poison him and later "shot" him (from which he jumped up from the floor and ran out to the garden)...after which he was actually fatally wounded. Anyways, overall I thought it was a neat exhibit. I was rushed back to the boat at 5:30 and met up with the fam for dinner. That evening, my mom, aunt, paul (an awesome guy I met on the boat) and I went to a Russian Folk Dancing/Singing show. The dancing was unbelievable, except the typical thing for female dancers to do often is to yelp...which got quite obnoxious after awhile. But paul liked the yelps...or so he says. The singing, on the other hand, was alright, but really slow so I kept falling asleep. Day Two in Russia was spent at the Hermitage. I got to see two original paintings of Madonna by Leonardo Da Vinci, a sculpture by Michelangelo, and numerous Picasso, Rembrant, Matisse and El Greco. I thought it was pretty neat. I had some seriously obnoxious people in my group, though, which kind of put a damper on things. For instance, one of Da Vinci's paintings was "Madonna and Child", where a baby is sucking on the breast. And this woman behind me is like "ohhhh the emotion, you can feel the emotion" and she's like screaming it. And then she tells her husband "how cute is it that he's sucking on his thumb" to which he expertly replied "hunny, thats not a thumb, its a bottle" to which I replied, without a hint of annoyance I assure you, "it's a breast", before promptly walking away.
Anyways, moving on. Tallin, Estonia was pretty sweet. The city is a teeny cobblestoned street town on the Baltic Sea, with amazing architecture and lifestyles that belong to both the old times and newer modern times. I found it amazing that Estonia has just recently gained their independence (1991, I believe) and yet there cities have already been rebuilt in their post-Soviet domination era. Tallin was one of my favorite towns. :]
Gdansk, Poland was another one of my favorite tours/cities. Gdansk is located about an hours drive inland from Gdynia on the Baltic Sea. We were taken to the "main drag" where there was a marathon going on. Apparently roller blading is a huge thing there, because the majority of people who participated were riding blades. There was also numerous street vendors and cafes and shops to go to, and the tour lady pretty much gave us 2 hours of free time to do as we pleased.
The following day, my aunt and I endured a 3 hours each way train trip from the coast into Berlin. It ended up being a whole day trip, but we only got to spend 5 hours in the city, which was okay by me. I got to see the things I wanted to see, and after a couple hours I had wished I could have gone off on my own. However, I got to see the Berlin Wall remains (I even gave in to my tourist political-science major side of me and bought a piece for like 18 dollars), go on a canal tour of the city and see Checkpoint Charlie (which wasn't all that awesome). The highlight of my day came as a surprise. As part of our tour, we did a tour of the Jewish Museum, which had multiple exhibits that detailed the history of Jewish/German relations. My favorite exhibit was this art piece that took place in a "void". It's very difficult to explain this museum because everything has symbolism, but it was filled with these dead-end hallways and gaps between walls that were called voids, to symbolize the void Germany felt after the execution of 6 million Jewish people. This one void was lit by only a small sliver of light, and the floor was covered with hundreds upon hundreds of metal faces. They had been crudely cut and featured different shapes and sizes, some with two eyes, others with eyes or mouths filled in with a piece of metal. Anyways, the piece was very moving, and everyone was invited by the artist to walk on the floor of faces. As the faces clinked together, the metal clanking was the only sound you could hear. That exhibit alone made this museum one of my favorite museums I've ever visited.
We returned to Copenhagen (sadly) and spent a day in Copenhagen, with a few of my Aunt's friends who live a couple hours out of the city. On the 18th, Paul, his sister Claire, and his parents and I said our goodbyes, but we know we'll see each other again, because they live only a couple miles from my Aunt up in Danville. Anyways, overall the cruise was pretty amazing, to say the least, and I didn't even get to talk about how awesome all the food was.
As most of you know, I'm now in Amsterdam. I got here yesterday after traveling on trains from 7 am to 8 pm, and having a pretty awesome time. The weather could be a little nicer. I feel we lucked out on either getting lightly rained on or missing the rain on our cruise, but it's been a nice couple of rainy days here in Amsterdam. I leave tomorrow for Switzerland, and will either spend a night or a few hours in Zurich before heading to Luzern. Then I'll be spending the remainder of my time in Italy. Lucky me :] Hope everyone's having good summers. I'll write more from Switzerland :)
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