Last day in Spain

I woke up early because I had to check out but the people let me keep my bags in the hostel because my flight was at like nine PM. This day I hung out with people at the hostel and then went to the science museum. The science museum was the coolest ever and it was just really hands on, I put a bunch of pics up on facebook that would be a lot easier to see than for me to describe I guess. I left here and made my way back to the airport. I made my flight just fine, and got an emergency exit seat. I can never sleep on planes and this ride was no different. I got back to Pisa and met up with some girls from my program randomly. We realized no trains left for Siena until like 5 30 the next morning, so we made a midnight Leaning Tower run. I didn't have a place to stay so I slept in the train station. I tried actually. A crazy lady kept yelling at me so I went away and did the reading that was do in class in like 6 hours. I finally got into Siena at like 7 30 AM and then realized I had class at nine, by the time I made it to the bus stop to take me home, it was 7 45 and the next bus didnt leave until 8 15,s o I just went to AHA and slept in front of the door, since it didnt open until 8 45. I was woken up by my teacher and then went to class. I was fine through this class, but I kept falling asleep in the middle of Italian. I would honestly be talking and then fall asleep, it was bad. I went home and slept from 6 PM until 10 AM the next day. It was a great trip and probably the best time I've had since I got back from Greece.

First Full Day in Spain

This day was a pretty relaxing one during the day. I woke up and made my normal meal of traveling, which is bread and nutella, and orange juice. Mom, I would suggest trying some it is delicious. I finished the meal and made my way on the Metro to the beach. I hung out there for like six hours, and got a little color. I met some German girls who I hung out with for the rest of the afternoon. We had late lunch at a good place where we got sandwiches and drinks. One of them had pretty much perfect english and had studied in the US for a long time. We parted ways and went back to the hostel to hang out for a little bit. I met some girls from Canada as well as people from other parts of Spain. I translated for them for a while then went out to eat. I finally had real meal of Spain. I had Chicken Paella, which was delicious and Horchata, which was ok. Horchata isa milk with sinnamon in it. Paella is a rice dish. I walked around the old city a little while longer, then made it back to the hostel. Where we had a few drinks then went out for Tapas. Tapas are like hors d'oeurves. Just small things that you eat before you go out. We got to the bar at like midnight, which is customary here. It was really fun. The bar had all types of flags up on the ceiling but we did not see a Canadian flag, so the girls drew one and the bartender hung it up. I met some really cool Spanish people and talked to them about what disco we should go to. We went to the dance club at about three and then stayed til five, which is pretty normal for students. It was really fun and I went home and crashed.

First Night in Valencia

I got into Valencia, after sitting next to a very nice Italian women and talking for a while in Italian on the plane. I found my hostel after a bit of trouble, I was pretty rusty with my spanish so I had a hard time thinking of the words to say at first to find directions. I found it and it was the coolest hostel I have been in. It was run by Australians and British like many of the ones that I have been to. This one was very clean and had tons of services that can be used for free, except the internet, but that was very cheap. It had five floors and the top one was a lounge with pool and foosball and books and TV and an outdoor porch to hang out on. There was a huge kitchen with some free food and lots of tables to hang out on. My room had almost all Italians in it, and I talked to them in Italian as much as I could, but it usually goes to English after I have exhausted my vocabulary, but they are more than welcome to help me out. For the whole weekend I spoke Spanish, unless I met people in the hostel who spoke English and not Spanish. After checking out the hostel, I went to the old district of town where all of the old moorish and arabic buildings were. This type of architecture is typified by its geometrical designs, which are really intricate. I went in cool church with a nice altarpiece and roof from the 15 century. It looks a lot different than Italian art, a lot more advanced and realistic for the same time period. Also, in the church was a relic. It was someones arm from the 14th century, it looked really old and wrinkled. After this I just wandered down to the river area which is really developed and has tons of public paths. It has a fountain just like the Ballagio in Las Veags, where the water fountains are synced with music. It also has a really cool children's park with lots of hands on activities and learning stations with mini golf and life size chess and a big play station. After this is a series of waterfalls and cool landscaping that leads to the City of Arts and Sciences. The first one is the Museum of Art, which looks very futuristic and looks like a killer whale to me. The next building is the Hemisferic, which is a hemisphere of dome of glass and underneath is a dome of plastic or metal where they house meetings and conferences. Next to this is the science museum, where they have the coolest science museum I have ever been in, but I will explain that later. Next to this is a really cool Aquarium that is really futuristic looking to, you should check it out on line if you can. They are building more stuff next to it that looks pretty cool. After walking down this big strip I decided to walk back. It started to downpour so I jumped from awning to awning making my way back in the rain. I got online when I got back and wen tot bed early because I was tired.

First Day in Valencia

So I woke up Friday morning and I still had to buy my train ticket to get to Pisa and pack, I managed to both in quick time and then made the train that was just leaving to Empoli, the changing point. I met some really cool people on the train from Michigan and talked to them for a while. They were going to Pisa Centrale and I was going to Pisa Airport. I assumed that since they were so close that they would be on the same train so I mindlessly followed them on the train, bad idea. After their stop I rode the train for a half hour and then had to get on the train going the other way to get back to Pisa Centrale. I got out and caught the bus taht was just leaving to the airport and then sprinted into the checkin area where I caught the person before it closed. Due to the Ryan air policy of free seating I still got an emergency exit row. Nice, More to come later.

8th(?) Week

Eighth week was pretty calm for the most part, I was a pretty big bum and didn't do much exciting. We have started to watch a movie in Italian and it is very European, with random nudity and lots of swearing in other languages, I like it. We had a presentation in art history that was really easy, I just researched one of my favorite paintings and talked about it to the class. We were going to go in the tunnels beneath Siena but it was too rainy, so we couldn't. Weak sauce. I think everyone is pretty sick of art and science, it is just a really boring class, but oh well its almost over.

Padua and Venice

We had to get up early once again to make the trek to Padua. Padua is a hideous city that does not have very much going for it besides a very beautiful chapel. The chapel had some of the coolest frescoes I had every seen though. They had a great big fresco of the last judgment with a lot of cool art of both sides of the judgment. This was all painted my Giotto, a person I had never heard of but have heard plenty about since I have been here. He essentially started renaissance art, no small task. After this we had free time. I went and shopped for groceries because everything in Venice would be so expensive. We took an hour bus ride to Venice, which just looked industrial and ugly at that point. Then we got on a boat and started to get out to the island of Venice. It kept getting more and more gorgeous as we moved up the canal. We finally got to our hotel which was very close to the main square, St. Mark’s. We had dinner when we got there and it was pretty disappointing because we usually have a meat course, and there wasn’t one. We had really good tortellini and tomatoes with mozzarella, but no meat. I couldn’t believe it. After dinner, we decided that Kristen would close her eyes and point to a spot on our map and we would walk there. This is a lot harder than it sounds. Venice is actually criss crossed and cut up by canals and very few of them are crossed at regular intervals by bridges. There are many dead ends and paths that go nowhere. There are no cars there, only handcarts to move products around. We saw the Rialto Bridge at night and it was gorgeous. We hogged the best view point for a long time and the people behind us were getting impatient.

On the first morning that we were there, John and I, who had our own room, woke up early for breakfast. This hotel was amazing because it actually had a good breakfast. Italians normally only have a croissant and some coffee for breakfast, so I have been hurting for a good breakfast for a long time. This place had everything besides bacon and sausages, which I am not going to get greedy for. We explored for a while and then the whole group went to St Mark’s Square and we toured the Duke’s Palace. Our guide was very interesting because he lied a lot about how awesome Venice was. He was telling us it was one of the oldest cities in the world, even though there are probably 100 cities in Italy that are older than it. He was also telling us about this naval battle that was the most important in world history that none of us had ever heard about. After we did our group stuff, some of us split off and went to the islands that are around Venice. We decided that we wanted to go to Burano, which is the place where they make cool doily stuff. We purchased our boat tickets and hopped on the boat. We got off at the stop and walked around the island. I would have never realized it, but we got off on the wrong island. This island was ok, but there was really nothing on it besides some tourists shops and the like. We hopped back on the next boat and went to Burano, which was a very pretty colorful town where we all bought some good gifts for our families. We realized that our boat would be getting back with very little time to spare so we had to hustle back. We raced back and had group dinner, with meat this time, then had free time again. I really didn’t feel like going out due to my lack of sleep recently, so Liz and Dani and I hung out in my room and had some quality time.

The next morning we went to the Museum of Venice where we had the quietest, most boring guide ever. No one really paid any attention to her and we all just kind of wandered off. Nicole’s boyfriend, now fiancée, had flew in and surprised her by proposing in the middle of St. Mark’s Square the day before, so the girls all had something to talk about and were pretty preoccupied. I have heard plenty about everyone’s wedding plans and ideal rings and all that for a while now, but I doubt these chats will abate. After the tour, some of us went for a gondola ride. Our gondolier was cool and I asked him a lot of questions about gondoliering. There are 427 gondoliers in Venice and they all pretty much have their own boats. It is passed down from father to son and you start to learn at about 13. We passed the houses of Mozart and Goethe on the ride out and then crossed the Rialto Bridge, and headed back. It was a lot of money, but it was relaxing and beautiful. It was kind of a rainy day and after our ride we just walked around and window shopped. An island very near Venice, Murano, is world famous for their glass-making abilities, and every shop has unbelievable glass works in them. We took the boat to the bus and then drove four hours home. I finally was able to sleep on the bus so the time passed very quickly. I fell asleep pretty quickly when we got home.

7th Week of Classes

This week was short and pretty easy. We had reading about Galileo for Art and Science, so those were actually interesting and we had some legitimate class discussions, finally, it only took 6 weeks. For Art History, we went to the Church of Santa Maria della Scala, which used to the biggest hospital in Siena. It housed one of the nails from Christ on the cross. This isn’t true at all, but people believed it back in the day, so it brought this place a lot of money and it was a very big political player in the scheme of Italian politics. I have started to go to the University to use their internet because it is free. They do not have very convenient hours though, so I don’t have much time to use it for. It has been a rough week of sleep for me, with a few people very close to me having problems that I am so far away from. They are always in my thoughts and prayers and I will be home soon.

6th Week of Classes

This week was another pretty standard week as far as classes go. We had a paper due in Cross-Cultural studies that I typed during class and handed in, which I got an A on. For Art & Science, we had some longer readings about really boring stuff that is almost completely irrelevant to what we had been learning before. Art History was fun because we got to go out and learn about the big fountain, Fonte Gaia, instead of sitting in class. Then on Wednesday we went to the Piccolomini Library, which I was really excited to go to because it is a library. Unfortunately it is not known for its books, but for its amazing artwork, which was pretty cool, I guess. In Italian we are learning things at a pretty good rate and we had our midterm and oral midterm this week, which I think I did pretty well on. We have to start writing journals for Italian and Matteo, my teacher, wants me to write almost a page a day to keep my improving and trying new grammar styles out. It has finally started to warm up here, so that is nice. We spend most of our time between classes hanging out in the Campo and getting gelato. I went and saw a movie in Italian, Ironman, and could understand most of it, so I was pretty proud of how much I have learned so far. I have been going to the Tea Room a lot lately, and the manager is really cool guy that I have been able to speak to in Italian quite a few times. On Friday we went to Monteoliveto and Pienza. Montooliveto was a cool monastery that had a drawbridge and a big spawning pool for fish. It had a huge renaissance refrigerator and a nice library as well. On Saturday we went to Assisi, where we saw the upper and lower church of St. Francis. The churches were cool and pretty, but I have seen so many that they just kind of run together for me. The town of Assisi was having a reenactment that day so there were tons of people dressed up in period costumes. It was funny to see them all hanging out on break because they were just smoking and talking on their cell phones. We also went to the church of St. Clare, who was a contemporary of St. Francis. We saw many of both of their relics, including tunics and both of their bodies. Their influence on Christianity was their focus on poverty and humanism. So instead of having all of the riches of the Catholic Church, they gave everything away, and focused on the humanity of life and how everyone and everything is equal in God’s creation. It was really interesting to learn about this departure from the norm. After we got back, everyone went to buy tickets to go to the beach on Sunday. After two days of traveling with everyone I decided that I was not going to go again. Liz and I decided to have a picnic at a park near my house. We went to Conad on Sunday and bought a bunch of food and just hung out all day at the park with Italians being very publicly romantic with each other. You can’t escape it anywhere you go, in the campo or anywhere. That night I went to the Tea Room again.

End of Ireland

We went to the Comedy Club, and it was amazing. The MC was a really funny guy that was from Dublin, and he had plenty of inappropriate jokes and funny things to say about everything. He was calling people out in the crowd who were here on the Bachelor or bachelorette parties and it got pretty funny. The first guy on was from Australian, then a guy from Scotland, who was my favorite. He looked like sloth from the goonies. The last guy on was a guy from Dublin, but he wasn’t that funny to me because it was all about Irish history, which I knew very little about, but more than I had because of all of the touring that we had done. After the comedy, the place turned into a night club, where we hung out for a while. After that we walked around Temple Bar area, in and out of a few clubs and pubs. I decided to stay up all night since we had to leave the hostel at four to make our flight at six AM. I hung out with the Dutch girls that we had met the day before. The trip home was exhausting; we had a layover in Birmingham, England for a few hours before we flew back into Pisa, and then took the train, via Empoli back to Siena. We got in at about six PM and I went right to bed.

2nd Day in Dublin

We had a very relaxing day yesterday, Hanks and I just went to the Dublin Writer's Museum and walked around for a few hours. I knew nothing really about most of the authors there. It was pretty cool to see all of it. Then we went to the Remembrance Pond which was neat. Then we went to the parks in the south of Dublin which are really cool and have swans and all sorts of cool water things and stuff. Our hostel is kind of a dump but there are so many international people staying there it is cool. Our roommates are French so we talked to them for a while. We met a guy from Canada that does a lot of stuff with the environment and he was really interesting. Then we met a girl from Spain who I could actually talk to for a while. Then we met some guys from Brazil and Portugal, and they taught us some Portughese, which is very similar to Spanish as well. Finally we met a group from Holland and talked to them about all sorts of things about Holland and Amsterdam and tons of stuff. They study Journalism and are here doing a piece on Dublin. We ended up going out with them and they taught us a bunch of Dutch phrases. Dutch is a very cool sounding language. We went to a bar on the Temple Bar district and just hung out and talked about American politics and other stuff. Today we went to the National Museum, but I was really tired and museumed out so I didn't last very long. And the Museum of Natural History was closed: Bummer. We walked all the way out to their 97,000 seat stadium to check out the Gaelic Athletic Association, it was really interesting and we learned a lot about Hurling, Gaelic Football, and Handball. We also got to do some interactive stuff and got to try hurling which is similar to lacrosse but with a mallet so the ball is hard to control. We also got to try Gaelic Football which is complicated but the ball is a lot like a soccer ball. There were booths to try out you vertical and your balance and your reaction timing too. We walked back and tried to nap but that didn't work out the best, the French girls were being loud in the room. We are going to a comedy club tonight and then to Cobblestone for some traditional Irish music. Our flight leaves and 7 tomorrow from the airport so I think we have decided to just not sleep and stay up until then. Until next time.

First Day in Dublin

We didn't go to class on Wednesday and made our way down to Pisa early so we could check out the leaning tower and everything else Pisa has to offer. Turns out that its not really that much. The tower was cool and we took the typical corny tourist pics, then we decided to get more creative. We got to the airport and figured out all of our plane stuff, Ryanair is a lot more legit that I was told it was, just very low frill. The flight was good, I got cognac in a baggie, which was two for one. It was almost as bad as the Absinthe I drank. I could barely choke it down. We got to Dublin and found our hostel, called The Shining. Not very promising. The lady at the front desk was cool though, our room has 18 beds in it but for the most part we have our own room because it is split in half. I got top bunk. We went out and got Tex-Mex, and man everything is so expensive here. Hanks and I decided that since there isn't really traditional Irsih cuisine that we would just buy some bread and nutella and live off of that, and that is all I have eaten so far.
When we woke up the next day, we had a full day planned. Hanks and I went to Trinity College and checked out the Book of Kells, which is an ancient manuscript written in the 9th century. There was a really cool exhibit in front of that that showed how they bound and made all of these books and with the history of influences on Irish style. At the end was my favorite part, the Long Library of the college, which was amazing, I would suggest that you look it up online because it was like the ideal library. We then met the girls, who did not share our enthusiasm for books, at Dublin castle, where they reserved us a spot on the last tour of the day. It was really cool and our tour guide was funny. He took us through the mediocre past of Irish politics. Not that they don't have any exciting times, but they really don't have much of anything that people want so it hasn't been a very hotly contested piece of land. We got to see the base of the old castle which was built in the 12th century. We then stopped by St. Peter's cathedral, which was cool on the outside, but some people didn't want to pay to get in so we did not go. I will go at sometime because I would like to compare the differences between Irish and Italian cathedrals. Like everything else I have been to this place is under renovation. We then went to the Guiness tour, which is amazing. They just made it and it is quite the impressive building. It takes you through everything that goes into beer and then all of the steps that make up the process of making it. There is a small sample room halfway through, but then at the end, you get a free full pint, which was delicious. I had been building myself up to drinking Guinness since I got to Europe, trying stronger and stronger beers. We re met some girls that were on our plane from Minnesota and Hanks and I got some extra beers because the girls didn't like theirs as much. After that we went to my favorite place yet. We took the tour of the Jameson Whiskey distillery. The tour was guided and the guide was really cool, and since I read my Rick Steve's Tour Book, Hanks and I knew to volunteer enthusiastically to sample the wares. They had mini models set up everywhere about the 8 steps that they take to make this triple distilled Whiskey. In comparison, scotch is distilled twice and American whiskey once. At the end, everyone got a free glass of whiskey, but since I won the rock paper scissors between Hanks and I, I got to be the on the taste testing panel. In front of everyone, they gave us a small shot of the three best Irish whiskeys, Paddy's, Power's, and Jameson's. We had to compare the flavors of all three of them. Jameson is actually very good and doesn't have much bite at all. We had to pick our favorite and then compare it to a small shot of Scotch. Scotch is made by roasting the barley with smoky fire, so it has a smoky, peaty taste to it. It wasn't very good. Then, finally, we had to drink the Jameson against the best selling whiskey in the world, Jack Daniels. After drinking those good whiskeys, the Jack was absolutely unbearable. There was a French guy and some Australians on the panel and they were making fun of me because we drink Jack at home, I looked at them and proudly said that I drink only the best Evan Williams. They laughed pretty hard because apparently Uncle Evan doesn't have the best rep here. After we were done tasting, they gave us another glass of whiskey, I tried mine with ginger ale, it was good. Needless to say, after the two tours, Hanks and I had a slight buzz going. We went home and had some sandwiches and the girls had found a good pub to hang out at for the night. The drinks were really expensive there so we snuck in our own and kept pouring it in the one glass that we had bought. The place was called Fitzsimmons and it had four floors, one had live music, one had another classier bar, and the top floor was a rooftop bar that we hung out on for a while and met a dude from Amsterdam who was fun to talk to. We then headed to the basement, where the club was, and danced until four or so. Today the girls, Piper, Emily, Danielle, and Kelsi, went to the coast, I didn't really feel like going, so Hanks and I are doing all the nerdy things that they don't want to do today. We got kicked out of the hostel at 11 because they close it from then until two to clean I guess. I have loved the emails and would love to hear from more people. Peace, love, and gap.