Euro Drama: Is the Euro Going to Last?

While we were in Ireland, we saw newspapers and flyers asying it was a "dark day for the euro." We were wondering what this meant, as it seemed a bit ominous. The European Union, particularly the eurozone, the seventeen European countries that are currently using the euro, are struggling to stay together as a political and economic union. Five countries in the eurozone, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Italy (go us!), and Portugal are currently in bankruptcy or are very close to it, causing the euro as a currency to fluctuate too much. A lot of European banks are going bankrupt, and many European governments are also struggling. Italy has just recently changed prime ministers, from Berlusconi to Mario Monti, and Monti is trying to instill economic reform.

This doesn't seem to be helping. Angela Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France are the forerunners for trying to help keep the European Union while still keeping the euro. Other countries, like the United States and especially the United Kingdom are voting for the European Union to no longer use the euro, as in the long run, the world economy would function better with more currencies and it would be easier to help the bankrupt countries, especially Greece and Italy. The United States has its own share of problems too, given our national debt has increased to scary numbers in the past year or so, and the dollar continues to inflate. America and Europe are both not in a great place at the moment, and some economists are saying that we could experience a second Great Depression if our leaders don't step it up a notch. Maybe the Mayans predicting the end of an era at the end of 2012 wasn't so far off...

Ireland, Part 2, Back to Dublin and into the West

Trinity College

 So, we're going to pretend that all of these blog posts weren't within a few days of each other. I'm determined to keep this blog somewhat up to date. After we got back from our whirlwind trip to London, we went back to Dublin and met up with Julie and Ed again. We didn't do much on Wednesday night other than go to a pub for dinner and some drinks. The next day, Thursday, we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. We couldn't take pictures, but the books were cool. They also showed you how they were made and inked, which was awesome. I think it would be fun to bind books that way, but I guess it's not if that's the only method you have of doing it. It was also kinda strange walking on a college campus again. Rome has nothing even closely resembling a college campus like Penn State. I miss it.

Thanksgiving dinner

 Thursday night was Thanksgiving, which was totally weird since it didn't seem like Thanksgiving to me at all. Probably because I haven't been in America for quite some time now. We went to a pub for dinner (Fitzgerald's, our fav) and had shepherd's pie and cider. Not exactly traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but it was still good. Thursday night we went kinda crazy at the bars and were definitely enjoying ourselves at our "usual" bar, Busker's, with our seven deathly sins drinks and the breathalyzer. Yes, they had a breathalyzer at a bar. No, I don't think anyone should know what any of our BACs were that night. It was a good night, even if the club we went to was basically empty and Eric and I may have made fools of ourselves. Its all good. We were doing all of this when we should have been sleeping, honestly. We decided to go on the Cliffs of Moher tour on Friday morning... at 6:40am. It was an... interesting morning. Its a good thing we could sleep on most of the bus ride to Galway.

Fairy fort

 The bus trip started with taking us to Galway, one of the cities in Western Ireland. Our tour started from there, essentially going down the coast, stopping periodically, to the Cliffs and Moher and then back up again. On the way down, we stopped at some Irish ruins, which were essentially out in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at a "Fairy Fort" (essentially leprechauns), and we also stopped at a pub in Doolin for lunch. I had Beef and Guinness stew, which was delicious. I never liked Guinness until I came to Europe, really. I wonder if its just because I've had it on tap or if it just tastes better here...
We also saw tons of sheep just grazing in fields. A lot of Western Ireland doesn't seem to be too built up.  A lot of it was fields and mountains, which honestly is kinda refreshing. Its nice to know at least some parts of the world are green. I do see why most people associate the color green with Ireland, though. It seems that everything is green, even their passport stamp. Its kinda funny. It really is a beautiful country though, even when its cloudy.

 Once we got to our final destination - the Cliffs of Moher - it was absolutely breathtaking. It was so peaceful looking at the water rushing up against the cliffs... until you get pelted with wind or water. Some of the water coming off the cliffs would be going up because of the direction of the rain. It was so strange. Walking past certain parts of the cliffs felt like one of the worst rainstorms. We snuck past a "do not climb" sign to get farther into the cliffs (smart? probably not. was it a really short wall that even I could climb over? yes.). The wind was stronger here, and there was no real railing at all, which really kinda made me a bit nervous. All of us survived, and we watched the light hit the clouds and the water crashing up against the cliffs. We explored the visitor's center a bit too, which was built inside a mountain. Our way back mostly involved sleeping as it gets dark in Ireland around 4:45pm in November, and we were all tired anyway. We got back to Dublin in early evening, but unfortunately spent most of the night packing. Yay for early morning flights. It was nice to relax a bit before getting on a plane (again) and going back to Rome for two weeks of hellish work.

It was Christmas in Dublin when we were there. I loved seeing all of the Christmas decorations. They just started putting up decorations in Rome when we got back from Ireland. 'Bout time. Ireland & London was an amazing way to spend Thanksgiving break. I was very sad when it was over. It was also great to see Julie, Eric and Ed. I plan to go back to the UK + Ireland whenever I get the money to be able to.

Well, its three days until I return to America. I'm glad, but I think it'll be weird too. It'll be weird that people can actually understand me. Studio is officially over as of today. My goal is to blog about everything Europe-related before I leave. Hm.. we'll see about that. Ciao for now!

Being Breh-ish in London Town

London Bridge

 After we were in Dublin for a few days, Clarissa, Eric, and I decided to go to London for a day and a half. We took an early flight, around 6:30am, meaning we'd be landing in London from Dublin around 7:30am. We had planned to have the entire day, but an unexpected 1.5 hour bus ride from London Standsted Airport to Central London delayed our plans slightly. After finally getting to the area of London located near our hostel, we took the better part of an hour looking for our hostel. We did finally find it - Phoenix Hostel - near the Edgware Road Underground Station. After we finally got on our way, we tried to go to King's Cross to be huge Harry Potter nerds. We totally failed at this too. First, we went to platforms nine and ten, and a random worker tells us that its on platform one. Ah, our dreams are ruined. Then we can't even get to platform one because our tickets don't work. Dreams ruined again. Fail.
After that, we found ourselves at the Tower of London, where the crowned jewels are held. We also had lunch here - an English specialty, fish and chips. It was cool to see, though I'll definitely have to go back to London to go inside all of these places. The day overall was pretty gloomy and foggy, which is probably pretty standard for London.

Big Ben

 After we visited the Tower, we walked along the Thames River heading toward the Globe Theater, Millennium Bridge, and eventually, Big Ben and Parliament. We also made a stop at St. Paul's Cathedral, where there was a dance group dressed in Santa costumes. They were pretty good, and they were dancing right next to an Occupy London camp. It truly is all over the world. At the end of their performance, they were photobombed by two guys in Guy Fawkes masks... pretty awesome if you ask me.
The next thing we decided to do was to see the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. We walked there, though it took us a lot longer than we thought it would. We ended up unknowingly going through the back entrance, so we ended up bypassing the Rosetta Stone (which was smack in the center of the museum) and looking all over the entire museum for it. We did eventually get to see it, and it was pretty awesome to look at. We also saw some Egyptian sarcophagi and the London 2012 Olympic medals. Wasting tons of time looking for the Rosetta Stone wasn't all bad. Next on our power trip through London was finally Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. As I said before, next trip to London I'll be going inside at least Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of London. This time we just didn't have the time or money. British pounds really screw over the American dollar.

Red telephone box

We decided to grab some dinner after this. We stopped back at the hostel and eventually found a bar down the road (about 20 blocks) that had actual English food. We happened to be in the area of London that mainly had hookah bars and kebab places. Fail. I had bangers and mash with a Strongbow for dinner, which was pretty delicious. We ended up calling it a night pretty early, but we were ready to go the next morning. Our first stop was the Doctor Who store that Eric had found, which was all the way out past the new Olympic stadiums that are being constructed. We were able to see them from a distance, along with one of the observation towers. Before stopping at the store, we had some English breakfast, which included eggs, ham, chips (fries), and beans (essentially baked beans) with of course, tea. It was a good way to start the day. Then Eric and I were total nerds in the Doctor Who store, while Clarissa pretended to know what we were talking about. It was interesting to see parts of London that aren't the main tourist areas, however unintentional many of these excursions may have been. Our next stop was looking for the Tardis, from Doctor Who, which is essentially an old 1950's police box still left in London. We got off at the Earl's Court Underground station, and the website I looked at said it was right by the Underground station. We couldn't find it anywhere. It was King's Cross all over again. London just didn't want us to be nerds this trip, I guess.

Our last stop was Buckingham Palace, which was right near Victoria Station where we had to catch our bus to the airport. The queen was at the castle, as the flag was up. We missed the changing of the guard, so we didn't see the guards with the fuzzy hats. We did see some of the guards patrolling, though. The guards with the fuzzy hats are no longer stationed outside the main gates of Buckingham Palace, probably because people kept tormenting them. So, after we went to Buckingham Palace, we made our way to the bus we needed to take to the airport. We wound our way through the train station and through all of these different bus depots. By the time we got to the bus, we realized we were really cutting it close for our flight. Of course, as luck would have it, we missed it by about fifteen minutes (I know, right? Figures.). Luckily, there was a flight about 2-3 hours later, so we jumped on that one (for a fee, of course. thanks, RyanAir.) We at least got to relax a bit, get some food, and do a little bit of souvenir shopping. The most interesting store I saw was for the Olympics. If only I could get to London for the Olympics...
We did finally make our second flight, and made it back to Dublin in an hour. We totally bombarded Julie and Ed when we got back with our misfortunes. Despite our bad luck, I really enjoyed London and really want to return. It was interesting comparing it to America, as they're both English-speaking countries and one kinda exists because of the other. The English say "Way Out" instead of exit, first of all, which is a bit odd. They use both the Imperial and metric systems. They use the Imperial for length and metric for temperature, mass, and most other things. It seemed to have a lot of quirks and was just a really interesting place to be in. You could probably spend a year there if you wanted to, and I probably really would have considered studying abroad there had I had a choice.

Next blog post will be more of Dublin and Ireland. Paris, and the rest of Rome are coming soon too.
Stay tuned. A presto!

Second Stop: Dublin, Ireland, Part 1

The traveling continues. After our Northern Field Trip, our next stop was Dublin, Ireland for the week of Thanksgiving. However, first, we had to get from Venice to Dublin. We ended up with a flight out of Bergamo, which is a small town about thirty minutes outside of Milan, because Clarissa and I were cheap and used RyanAir. After we wandered around Venice waiting for our 8pm train, we arrived in Bergamo by midnight or so, leaving us 10 hours until our flight took off for Dublin. Fortunately for us, there was a 24-hour cafe in the Bergamo airport, and there were plenty of people already there doing the same thing: sleeping in the airport. At first Clarissa and I were taking shifts sleeping, while we both fiddled with all of our bags to make sure they made weight and size requirements. We were forced to move around 4-5am, where we essentially just sat and watched the screens until we were able to check in. I took a small nap on the floor because I really couldn't stay awake, and with all of our bags, Clarissa got the impression most people walking past thought we were homeless. Not one of our better moments. After a few more hours, we finally were able to get on our two-hour flight to Dublin, arriving there around noon. After waiting for a while in the Dublin airport, Clarissa, Eric, Julie, Ed and I all set off for our hotel, the Lynams Hotel, right on O'Connell Street in the city center of Dublin.

Our first night in Dublin was a short one. Once we got to the hotel, we had some issues with the room where Clarissa ended up not having a bed. Once we had worked that out, we decided to go to a pub called Fitzgerald's and had some shepherd's pie and Guinness. However, because Clarissa and I were up all night in the airport and Julie, Eric, and Ed had an overnight flight, we all ended up in bed pretty early. We were all rested for the next day when we went to the Guinness storehouse. The Guinness storehouse was the only part that tourists are able to tour. The actual brewery, St. Jame's Gate, is closed, probably because they want to keep their exact processes and recipes a secret. The storehouse essentially takes you through a step-by-step process of how the beer is brewed, from ingredients to packaging. They showed us the malt, barley, hops, yeast, and water. The water they only get from the surrounding mountains in Dublin, and the yeast is kept locked away in a safe somewhere as its apparently the key to the taste of Guinness.

They also showcased several advertising campaigns for Guinness throughout the years. The entire museum was centered around a pint-shaped atrium that was several stories high. It was a really interesting space. The last part of the tour was a complimentary Guinness, which we drank in the Gravity Bar at the top of the storehouse. You could see all of Dublin from above. It was breathtaking. After drinking our Guinnesses, we walked around Dublin making stops at St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christchurch. We had to wait until Monday to actually go in because of their visiting hours, but we were able to spend some time in the surrounding parks. Dublin is an interesting city. Its mainly a mixture of traditional Ireland with a more modern global culture. They had a ton of Italian restaurants for example - which Clarissa and I made a point to avoid. That night we decided to head to some pubs. We had our first experience in Dublin's Temple Bar district, and we ended up finding a "regular" bar to go to while we were in Dublin - Busker's. We certainly gave them enough of our money during our stay in Dublin. It was a good night, despite the fact that we ended up at McDonald's at 2am just as if we were back in State College. Fail.

We started off the next day at the Jameson distillery. We also had a tour there, showing us how Jameson brews their whiskey, particularly in comparison to other types of whiskey. Jameson distills their whiskey three times, which is why it is so much smoother (and more expensive) than Scotch or American whiskey. They took us through the process of harvesting, mashing, distilling, and vatting. The five of us, Eric, Clarissa, Julie, Ed and I, all ended up volunteering to be whiskey tasters at the end of the tour, so we ended up being able to compare Johnny Walker (scotch), Jameson, and Jack Daniel's (American). I'm not a huge fan of whiskey, so I will say I liked the Jameson the most. We also got a complimentary drink here too, and I chose the cranberry and Jameson combination - Dublin's specialty.

Christchurch altar

After our trip to the distillery (and our being tipsy at 11 in the morning), we ended over to the two churches - St. Patrick's and Christchurch. Christchurch was a huge cathedral, and it also included a crypt, baptistery, and altar. The crypt was pretty fascinating, and it had a mini museum about the church and its books. They also had costumes from the Tudors (Showtime tv show) down there, as most of that show apparently was filmed in Ireland and within the church. We also went to St. Patrick's, which wasn't as impressive as Christchurch. The main nave of any cathedral is very pretty, but it just wasn't as amazing as we were all expecting it to be. After visiting the churches, we ended up going back for a bit so Julie could finish her paper (I know, she's so irresponsible, hah). Later that night, after we were all rested and homework assignments (somewhat) finished, we decided to go on a ghost tour which we weren't sure exactly how serious it was when it came to believing in ghosts and whatnot. The woman who was leading it was very interesting to listen to. For the first half, we mainly walked around parts of Dublin and listened to ghost stories and the woman's humor. When we were near Christchurch during the tour, there was a dog that was crazily running all over the place while she was trying to tell a story. It was pretty adorable, though.

St. Patrick's

The second half of the tour she took us to a church called St. Audeon's, which we had actually walked through earlier in the day. We were in this really creepy passageway, and she kept telling us all of these stories of things that people had seen, felt or experienced while on the tour. I wasn't really scared (though Eric was trying really hard otherwise), but it definitely was creepy when we were wandered around a deserted church at night. I mostly just felt uncomfortable, and every branch crunching or every branch rustling would freak me out a bit. All in all, it was an entertaining tour. For the rest of the night, we searched for a place to eat and a place to get a beer or two. We ended up with hot dogs and kebabs for dinner. Kebabs are pretty amazing, and I don't even enjoy that type of food usually. We ended up at a bar called the Mezz, which essentially was a little State College tucked in the heart of Dublin. It was crowded in there, and I essentially felt like I was in an American bar or club. We didn't stay there too long though; Eric, Clarissa and I had a 6:30am flight to London the next morning, and we had to make sure we were awake.

Next blog post will be our adventures in London, England for Tuesday and most of Wednesday. I'm falling a bit behind on the blog posting, but we have lots of work to do and I will be in Paris, France this weekend. More to come later. A presto.

It's less than two weeks until I'm back in the United States. This semester really has flown by...

Tons of Travel: First Stop, Northern Italy

Baptistery, cathedral, tower, and Duomo

It has been a little while since I've blogged. For the past two weeks, we've essentially been constantly traveling with limited wifi/computer access. The first week of travel, from the 14th to the 18th, was our Northern Field Trip, which included visiting Florence, Verona, San Vito di Altivole, and Venice. Our first stop was Florence for the first two days of our trip. The first church we went to was called Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, which was a combination of medieval and Renaissance architecture. The inside was based upon the concept of heaven, hell, and purgatory, and it had some nice stained glass windows. Florence is actually a lot smaller than I thought it was; its like a tenth of the size of Rome. There wasn't as much there as I originally assumed. However, there was still a lot of Renaissance architecture there, and a lot of it we have learned about in our art history classes. It was nice to finally be able to see some of it. The Medici family was the main source of money for most of the architecture built in Florence, and you can tell because their crest is everywhere.

Florence from above

The main attraction in Florence is the Duomo, designed by Michelangelo. The church, tower, dome, and baptistery were all in the same area of town, right by our hotel. The inside was pretty awesome, especially the dome. Its a huge egg shape, and can be seen everywhere in Florence. We went up in the tower, and saw the Dome and the rest of Florence from above. It was beautiful, and it was also really interesting seeing the density of Florence. All of the buildings are fairly low to the ground other than the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, and a few other churches. Its really easy to see the important monuments. In the two days we were there, we also saw the Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio. Palazzo Vecchio is essentially Florence's city hall, and we've learned about both buildings extensively in our classes. We also were able to see all of our Jamie Cooper drawings in real life. We were also able to go to the Galleria all'Academia, which houses the famous David, among other interesting paintings and sculptures. The David was a much larger sculpture than I was expecting, and the level of detail was pretty phenomenal. It was good to finally be able to see it, even if I wasn't able to take a picture.

Cemetary of Santa Croce with Florence in background

Later at night, Florence as a city seemed pretty quiet as a whole. The first night Cait, Clarissa, Rose, Naeemah, Kyle, Justin and I all went to a little bar far from the city center with a friend of Kyle's that lives in Florence. It was called Kitsch American Bar, though apparently not a lot of Americans go there (a bit misleading, if you ask me). They had a pretty cheap aperitivo dinner that was better than any typical bar food I've ever eaten. We also got a free drink with it, and we discovered the existence of Aperol sours (Aperol + blood orange juice), Europe's version of triple sec and orange juice. On our second night, we found a little panini place that sold really unique sandwiches. The first sandwich I had was pumpkin cream and ricotta cheese - absolutely delicious! It was such a strange combination, but it was delicious. The five of us - Clarissa, Kyle, Justin, Cait, and I - all got a different sandwich, twice. We literally ordered ten paninis in total at this place, and used the rest of the guy's bread. It was entertaining, and so delicious. We also had scotch with our director, Romolo, while in Florence to talk about the awful situation going on at Penn State. He gave us some perspective in regards to the situation, and it was actually really comforting talking to him.

We also visited both Santa Croce and the "first" Santa Croce that was all the way on top of a hill away from the city center of Florence. Romolo's wife, Helena, took us up there, and we were able to see the interior of the church and its extensive cemetary. Though it seems a bit morbid to be fascinated by a cemetary, each of the graves, tombs, or whatever were so different, and were clearly individual according to the family. It was really interesting looking through them and being able to understand parts of a person's life even after they've already passed. The cemetary and church also offered a gorgeous view of Florence, which happened to be when the sun was setting.

Museo Castelvecchio

After our few days in Florence, we hopped on a bus to Verona. Once we got there, we all had tickets to the Museo Castelvecchio, which is the only museum in Verona. We weren't really there to see what was in the museum, but to look at the design of the museum itself. The museum had additions that were designed by Carlo Scarpa, which essentially were a juxtaposition to the much older existing structure. Some of the details were pretty cool really, especially since his color and material choice started to blend with the existing building. We spent some time in the museum, and after that, we ended up just wandering around Verona. Verona isn't very large, and we only had a few hours there. We saw their "colosseum," which is essentially very similar in design to Rome's Colosseum, but its of Verona's pink marble and is much smaller. Its concerned the Colosseum's baby sister. We had some of the tourist-y gladiator guys following us, and the one quacked in my face (I know, random, right?) while the others just tried to get us to pose with them. Then Becca, Naeemah and I decided that we wanted to see Juliet's house (Casa di Giulietta), as in from Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet aren't actually real people, but apparently they're based on actual people, and the town of Verona is renowned for bloody family feuds. Shakespeare was truly a genius, I guess.

We walked further into Verona, mostly through the shopping streets. We also saw the Piazza Erbe on the way, which is one of the larger piazze in Verona, and it has a pretty cool looking clock tower. Just down the road, there was Juliet's house. It was small, and started with an archway that had writings from people who have visited, most of them wishing for love, relationships, etc. The actual house was a museum, but we didn't really have enough time or money to go in. You could see her balcony, which was really quite small, and a statue of Juliet. The rumor/legend is that if you hold her right hand and touch her boob, you'll have good luck in life and love. Of course, being tourists and silly, we all did it and took pictures. There was also a door behind the statue (can be seen in the picture) that was covered in locks, all from couples who have "locked their love" in Juliet's house. Very cheesy, but also very cute. There was also a gift shop that was filled with Romeo and Juliet merchandise. All of it was very cheesy, but it was fun to look. It was fun to see Verona, even if it was only for a little bit. I've always wondered if the scenery in plays and stories we read was actually anything like the actual place. In this case, it seemed to be. Later, we went to a place called Hippopotamus (ippopatami) which sold essentially what I would consider American food. I got some nice curly fries (missed these so much!) and a burger. Rachel and some of the boys all got crowns with their pizza, so for the rest of the day we were all having fun crowning people.

Before going to Venice, we made a stop in San Vito in Altivole, which is where the Brion Cemetary is. The actual cemetary itself was pretty ordinary, but Carlo Scarpa designed an addition in the back which is what we were there to see. He is also buried there because the town is where he grew up. Scarpa is very good with interesting and unique architectural details, like rolling stone doors and movable windows. Even the graves themselves (of the people who asked him to design it) were designed, even down to the Murano glass tiling and lettering all throughout the tomb. It was interesting to see something that can be so depressing transformed into something that can be experienced in a different way. I've also never seen an Italian town that wasn't a main tourist attraction. Altivole was kind of the opposite though - it was essentially a ghost town. It was a really small town, and there was no one around at all. The main attraction of the town seemed to be the cemetary. Big difference than in Rome.

Piazza San Marco

After an hour or so of bus travel, we arrived in Venice, our final destination for our Northern Field Trip. We had to take a tram over the water to get into the actual city, as there is no vehicular traffic in the city of Venice. It was really interesting seeing all of the canals, gondolas, and water taxis (yes, that's what they're called) all around in the everyday life of the city. Venice was very confusing to navigate because of the waterways, but we got around. The only piazza in the entire city is Piazza San Marco, while the rest of the open spaces are designated as Campo or other titles. Most of the buildings in Venice are very horizontal instead of vertical because of the type of soil in Venice, and they are all constructed so the individual members have room to move because of the instability of the soil. It was really interesting being in Venice because it is a truly different city than anywhere else we've been in Italy, and its one of the more famous tourist destinations that you hear about and see.

Murano - a glassblower's studio

There aren't a lot of people who live in Venice; most are tourists visiting or the rich coming to go shopping. A lot of the stores are very expensive items, like clothing and glassware. Venice is especially known for Venetian masks, usually handmade out of porcelain or papier mache right in Venice, and glassblowing, made at their own island dedicated to glassblowing called Murano. We went searching for a real Venetian mask, apparently those with a stamp or sticker on the back, and finally found some. They're all really beautiful, and it would be awesome to visit Venice for Carnivale when people are actually wearing them.
We also visited Murano, which is about a 15-minute water taxi ride to the island. We passed by Venice's only cemetary, as they have trouble with traditional burials because of the soil. Murano was a very small island, but we were able to see one of the shops still making glass in their shop. It was really amazing watching them mold the glass, and watching how many times they have to heat and cool it to get it to the shape they want. It was truly awesome to watch, especially since some of the pieces only took them minutes to make.

The rest of our time in Venice included us visiting Romolo's favorite pizza place, where I had pizza carbonara, which is just ham and egg. It was pretty delicious, almost like breakfast pizza. Most of Friday, our last day in Venice, was spent shopping and preparing for the our next week of traveling - to Dublin and London. We took a train out of Venice around 6pm that night to Bergamo, and 12 hours later, finally, a plane to Dublin.

I will be blogging later about Dublin and London, as this post is already extremely long. I think I'll also talk about the possible collapse of the euro and European Union, but we'll get to that later. I have a lot to talk about, and very little time as we now have tons of assignments due in the next two weeks. I'll eventually get to it, I promise. Its only 17 (almost 16 in Rome time) days left until I'm back in America. Ciao for now, everyone.

Genève, Suisse: le vin, fromage, et chocolat

It's been a long week, and only another day until I'll be traveling for two straight weeks. This week we've mainly been doing work to make our lives a little bit easier when we come back. I finally have a working battery and battery board in my computer, and I may actually bring it with me to our Northern Field Trip and Dublin. We'll see.

Jet d'eau and waterfront

Last weekend, we went to Geneva, Switzerland, which is in western Switzerland, right on the French border. We ended up leaving Friday morning because of some reservation issues. We got there around 4pm, and checked into our hotel, Hotel Capitole. It was right near the train station, and our room was actually very nice. We had a real bathtub, not to mention a minibar and tea. After we got settled in, we headed over to the United Nations Building, even though we weren't able to go inside. Its really quite inspiring, to see all of the flags of the world in front of one building, signifying their union. There is debate as to how useful the U.N. is, but its still inspiring anyway. After we walked along the waterfront, we decided to find some dinner. On the waterfront, there is a huge jet of water (Jet d'eau) that is approximately 140 meters high, but changes according to the wind. Its a really beautiful site. We found a small cafe near the cathedral that served fondue, which is pretty much the reason why we decided on that restaurant (and it wasn't 40+ swiss francs like most of them). We had cheese fondue and omelettes. They were delicious, and the fondue was amazing. I've never actually had fondue, but I suppose having Swiss fondue as my first will give me unreal expectations. It was at this restaurant that we discovered chocolat chaud suchard, which is Swiss hot chocolate. Friday night, we mainly walked around the area around the cathedral to see everything lit up at night.

Saint-Pierre Cathedral

Saturday morning, we started the day with breakfast at our hotel. We had croissants, fruit, Swiss hot chocolate, creamy cheese with rolls, and even eggs and bacon. It was delicious. We headed over to the cathedral area early to see the museum, archeological site underneath the cathedral, and the cathedral and towers. We went into the museum first, which was all about the history of Protestantism, Calvinism, and Lutheranism. Geneva is one of the more prominent Protestant capitals of Europe. The museum was very interactive with a complimentary audioguide and talking portraits of Calvin and Luther on the wall. It was very informative, and I usually don't enjoy museums. After that, we went into the archeological site, essentially the crypt, of the cathedral. What was most fascinating about the cathedral was how many parts it had, and how it had changed so much over the centuries. In the archeological site, you can see three different plans, all different churches built in different centuries. Even the existing cathedral has a Gothic spire, Romanesque nave, and neo-Greco Roman portico on the back. It was very intriguing. You could even see the layers of earth signifying when there was human life and what was built when. There was also a pile of human bones which was a bit unnerving.

North Tower

We went into the cathedral next, which had some pretty impressive stained glass. The cathedral in Prague is still my favorite, though. We went into both the North and South towers. We able to see the bell in the bell tower, and we were able to see the timber construction as well. On the top of the North Tower, we could see most of Geneva. It was beautiful. We could also see the Alps in the background. Unfortunately the clouds didn't clear until we were already back down on the ground, but it was still pretty awesome.
Next, we went to the Reformation Wall, which signified Swiss history in religion and in unification. The United States made the wall. The Mayflower was engraved there. It was pretty impressive. After that, we just walked around. There was some type of protest going on, though we still don't know what it was for. In Switzerland, the trees were actually fall colors and losing their leaves. Its the first time in Europe that I've really seen this, especially not in Rome. Switzerland has some nice parks, which we're not used to in Rome at all.

Playing large chess

In the park, we found large chess boards that people were using to play chess. It reminded us of Harry Potter. It was interesting though, and we had some fun with the large chess pieces. We wandered around the area for a while and saw the opera house in Switzerland. We also wandered around the city going to several chocolate stores, and of course, we tried several types of chocolate. Swiss chocolate is amazing. Its much smoother, and its just delicious. I got some in the shape of a mouse and its cheese. Its adorable. We also went into a store dedicated to the Bible and they were selling Christmas things. I bought a German advent calendar there. Its cute and miniature. We also saw the Russian church, which is known for its gold onion domes and excessive decoration. We could even see the Jet d'eau from the church. You could see it from most of the places in Geneva. We went down to the waterfront, which was full of swans. They're not nice birds, but they're very pretty. There were all of these boats docked, and you could see the Alps from the lake as well. We didn't go all the way up to the jet, as we would have been soaked. We did go close to it, and were able to see the lake, jet, and mountains.

Waterfront at sunset

After buying some more chocolate and souvenirs, we went to dinner right by our hotel. We had more fondue (of course), this time with bacon in it. We also had white wine with it, which was a very good choice. For dessert, I had sorbet framboise (raspberry sorbet) even though I was really much too full to be eating more food. Our waiter was really sweet, and even offered to take our picture. Clarissa and I were doing pretty well with speaking French, at least when it came to ordering most things. Swiss French is different, but its close enough to be able to get by with some knowledge. The food in Switzerland is so good, and I believe its because they produce very good milk. Probably the reason why Swiss chocolate is so creamy and sweet.

United Nations building

 Before our train on Sunday morning, we headed out to the United Nations building again to see it in daylight. It feels pretty cool standing there in front of the sign and in front of all of those flags. You don't realize how many countries are a part of the U.N. until you see all of those flags. We also walked around and saw a lot of cool modern architecture. Most of the buildings in Switzerland seem to be very clean and modern looking. There isn't the variety there is in Rome. We also saw an architectural district called the "Smurf" houses (pictured below) that were really quite eccentric. They all had crazy colors and designs. They had very irregular details, like curtains and railings, and odd-shaped windows and walls. They were really intriguing to look at, and I can see where they get their name from. I'd love to live there, so I get the feeling they're expensive despite the fact that they look so odd.

"Smurf" houses

 They all had little porches and eclectic little cubbyholes. Whoever designed these complexes must have designed every little detail down to the windowsills. Its pretty incredible, really. We never get to that level of development in our projects.
We essentially had to leave Switzerland after looking at the Smurf houses. We did spent the rest of our Swiss francs on chocolate and wine at a grocery store in the train station, though. Good spend if you ask me. Swiss currency is very pretty looking. Its colorful, not to mention the 10 franc note has Le Corbusier on it. Us architecture nerds thought that was cool, and each of us kept one. On the train back, we actually witnessed someone's bag getting stolen. It was frightening. There was a man who got on the train (they don't check your ticket until you're already moving usually) with no bags, who seemed to be checking everyone out by our observations. Then we hear the woman behind us screaming "My bag! My bag!" and see her running out of the train. I saw a guy running, that she seemed to be chasing. Apparently he just took her bag from right under her chair when she wasn't watching. I don't think she did give it back; I don't think there was anything the people at the train station could do. It truly was frightening though; I didn't really believe that could happen until I saw that. Other than that, our train ride home was long and a bit delayed. We got home and essentially had to work on homework.

Back in Rome, we've been doing a lot of work for both studio and analysis to prepare for our upcoming travels. Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has been booted out thanks to the European Union threatening to remove both Italy and Greece from the Union. Currently Italy has no formal government and has about twelve political parties all vying for a majority. Just today we saw a huge protest on Via del Corso and right outside of where Berlusconi lives (which I'd like to add is right next to our studio, real safe, I know). Italians really hate him. I'm not even really sure what type of government Italy is formally considered. They still have Fascist and Communist parties here (though not formally called that). It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next month that we're here.

Well, we have basically a month left here in Europe. As of Monday, we'll be in Florence, Verona, and Venice. As of Saturday, I will be flying to Dublin for a week, with a day and a half in London. I'm very excited. It'll be nice to be back home too, especially with everything thats currently happening at Penn State. I kinda wish I was there right now, especially for the candlelit vigil for the Sandusky victims and to be able to see Joe Paterno on his last days as head coach.
We also have a mold infestation on the first floor of our complex. There's a ton of black mold in all of the bathrooms, and no one realized what it was until everyone started getting sick. We have a bit on our floor too, but its nothing compared to what they have. Hopefully they'll take it out soon, or it will at least be safe by the time everyone returns from traveling. We also had no water at all on Wednesday until later at night because of a pipe problem in Trastevere. Talk about a bad day all around.
Well, that's all for now. Hopefully a lot of blogging to come. Ciao for new, a presto. Traveling, here I come.

Mac is Back!

My Macbook has been healed - at least partially. It seems that not only is the battery in poor condition, but the i/o board on my computer also died. Essentially, the part of my computer that supplies power from the charger to the battery fried. That's been replaced, and a battery replacement is needed in the near future. However, I can now use my computer. Yay!

To anyone thinking of visiting Rome with a Macbook, or those of you who will be studying abroad here in the future, the place to go for purchasing accessories and for Mac repairs is definitely Flaminia Computer. They're all very nice, and they speak good English as well. They're very experienced; the guy told me everything I need to do to be able to keep my computer's battery situation in check. They're all the way down Via Flaminia, past Piazza del Popolo, so they definitely aren't close, but if you have a studio deadline or just really want a functioning computer, they're the people to call. Just my advice for everyone.

A blog post about actual Roman experiences will be appearing shortly. This weekend I go to Switzerland with Clarissa and Rachel! After that, we have a week of classes, and then our Northern Field Trip to Florence, Verona, and Venice, Dublin for Thanksgiving, and Paris in December. Sounds like a fun time to me. :)

Ciao for now!