When We Was Young, Oh Man Did We Have Fun..

A little lyrical reference from the song “Someday” by The Strokes. Great song.

Date With a Professor

Last night we went on a date with a professor who we do not have a class with. Not literally, but CIMBA assigned us to a group of students and one or two faculty members whom we planned a few activities with. For my groups “first” date, we decided to keep it classy and go to McDonalds for dinner and then bowling in the nearby town of Castelfranco. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun, despite our poor bowling performance (with the exception of the skillful Nancy, (Scott). We had fake bowling names, me=McLovin). All in all, our first date went pretty well and I’m thinking there is going to be a “second” date pretty soon. (Pizza making, tentatively).

Travel Week One

This will probably be a long blog considering how much we got to see over our first week. I traveled with three other close friends from IOWA. After finding a hidden treasure (Chinese restaurant) in Bassano, we left Friday night on an overnight train to our first destination, Rome.

Rome

Before I get into the awesomeness of Rome, I have to say our overnight train there was quite a learning experience. I learned never to take an overnight train again. We were assigned to a cabin where you could sleep sitting up (a talent I do not have). The man in front of me also decided to take his shoes off and stretch his bare feet across the cabin to the seat next to me, yum. My friend Mal and I opted to just sit in the aisle outside the cabin, on a seat big enough for a 6 year old child. We pretty much just laughed our way to Rome for 7 hours, probably to keep ourselves from crying.

On a lighter note, Rome was the coolest place I have ever seen. Being in the Colosseum and thinking about everything that happened there, all the people that died there (about 700,000), was a crazy feeling. We also saw Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum ruins which were both super cool. Below is a picture of us outside and inside the Colosseum.

We also had the chance to take a tour of the Vatican and Sistine chapel. The Catholic Church has an intense art collection which we got to see in the Vatican Museums. St. Peter’s Basilica was beautiful inside. I highly recommend going to Rome at least once and experiencing the immense history there. The weather was also really nice. Below are pictures of Vatican City and me, hanging out on the Spanish Steps.

Paris

Our second destination was Paris, France. It was a little chilly there, but a beautiful city, nonetheless. My grandma lived there for some time while my grandpa was stationed in the army so it was neat to see some of the places she talks about. I also love art, so going to the Louvre was incredible. You could honestly spend three days there, it’s enormous. We got to see the overhyped Mona Lisa, but I think I enjoyed the architecture of the museum itself the most. Below is a picture of me in the middle of the courtyard area.

My favorite part of Paris was going to the top of the Eiffel Tower and looking down on all of Paris. Everything about the city was very Romantic, from the architecture to the shops. We had a lot of fun in Paris and did manage to do some shopping and some good eating. Besides some strange sausage I received at dinner one night, and a strange man trying to steal my hat and jump off the train (funny experience), Paris was a success. Below is Eiffel, day and night.

Barcelona

Our final destination was Barcelona, Spain. When we arrived at the Paris airport Wednesday night to leave for Barcelona, the Ryanair attendants (airline we were traveling through) made each person stick their carryon in a basket to make sure it fit before going through security, otherwise you had to pay 15 Euros ($20 US) to check it. Ryanair is a budget airline and flights are cheap but you have to pay to check bags. We decided to squeeze a weeks worth of clothes into a carryon to avoid these charges. The fact that our bags barely closed to begin with coupled with the items we acquired in Rome and Paris meant that our odds of fitting our bags looked as bad as the Cubs winning the World Series. To make my bag fit, (and this is NO EXAGGERATION whatsoever) I put on two shirts, a sweatshirt, TWO leather jackets I brought with, my northface, two scarves, and a hat. I may have looked like a human marshmellow but it was all worth it because my bag fit, after some shoving. It did take two of us to pull it out of the basket thing, though. The best part about this experience was taking off all these articles of clothing to go through security, including both scarves. I think I took up maybe four bins to go through the detectors and watched the security guards laugh as I put everything back on.

Since we were staying in Barcelona the longest and knew we would be exhausted, we decided to rent an apartment instead of staying in a hostel. Our apartment was so cute and relaxing. We went to the market and bought food so we could cook and save money from eating out. Funny, because we ended up making Pasta everyday, back to our Paderno roots. The clubs in Barcelona were also pretty fun. The best ones were on the beach. We went to one that suprisingly played American music, it was fun. I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear the Techno version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in Barcelona. The best part of the Barcelona was the awesome weather and the beach. The coastline was amazing. It wasn’t quite warm enough for bathing suits, but still beautiful. Below is a picture of the Coastline really early one morning after the club, and then the next day when we all went to the beach.

Travel Week one was a success but I think everyone was excited to get back to Paderno. It really feels like home here for me and I was ready to go back by the end of the week to see everyone. It’s so crazy to look through my pictures and think about everything I am getting to see. I miss being at Iowa sometimes and my friends there, but seeing all of the Europe is something I’m never going to forget. Definitely worth every penny.

This weekend I am going to Milan, Italy and going to a soccer game there. Italians are intense about their soccer so I’m pretty excited. It should be a fun atmosphere and David Beckham is playing, so I’m sold. If you have honestly read this whole blog, you need a life. Just kidding, but seriously I feel like I just typed a novel.

Talk to you soon Blogosphere.