Amsterdam!

            Mostly due to Sara’s convincing, I went to Amsterdam this weekend. I had no idea what to expect before going, it is hard to imagine Holland much past windmills and clogs, while Amsterdam had always just seemed like a town of partying backwash to me. But I went, and it turns out, I love Holland and even better, everyone there looks just like me!

            We arrived around seven on Thursday night after flying our first reputable airlines since arriving, reputable as in its theme colors weren’t neon and they actually had snacks and leg room. We meet up with a friend of ours from SACI and her friend from home for drinks in downtown and to orient ourselves. Walking from the bar to the bus stop we found our first red-lighted window, complete with a prostitute on display. At the time it was very exciting, but much like the bison in yellow stone phenomenon, by the end we would see so many it was almost obnoxious.

            Our hostel was a 30 minute bus ride to the suburbs, it was part hotel, part hostel, you could easily tell which patrons would be sleeping in the dorm rooms by the giant backpacks and/or bloodshot eyes. Our room slept six people, complete with a very very loud snorer, but it was clean and had a good free breakfast so no complaints there.

            Friday we wandered the red light district and were surprised to find that not only do prostitutes start work at 8:30 am in the morning, but also that they come in all shapes and ages, and I mean all. We saw some churches, including St. Nicholas’s, the patron saint of sailors, found the oldest pedestrian-draw bridge, admired the canals, charming row houses, and quaint feel of it all. Dutch Pancakes made up our lunch before we hit the Van Gogh museum and wandered around the 9’s district (there version of

Newberry street

or SoH0).  It was sunny but cold, probably -7 Celsius, so about every two hours we had to go inside somewhere and warm up or else suffer frostbite.

The most shocking thing about Amsterdam is the coziness of it. Everything is very well maintained and seems to be straight out of a Vermeer or Rembrandt painting. The canals with houseboats and stone bridges lead to numerous parks and every house is adorable. This charm is throughout the city, which makes the red light district so shocking, one moment you are admiring architecture, and the next moment you realize there are prostitutes in the windows and pot on the menu. Outside of the central canal though things are very calm, no prostitutes and not many coffee houses.

Saturday we woke up to a few inches of snow and trudged through it to the Anne Frank house. From there Sara went to the Rjiks museum while I found some more monuments and window shopped. Afterwards we stumbled across a Christmarket and indulged in some glue wine and morsels and are too good to describe and way to difficult to even attempt to spell.

Sunday, despite the freezing cold, we rented bikes and pretend to be local for a bit. Everyone rides bikes around, instead of burlies, they have carts in the front, like a cross between a wheelbarrow and a bike. We saw everything being transported in these carts from up to five children to a week’s worth of groceries. We rode around all the canals, Vondelpark, and managed to never be hit by a car or fellow biker. It was then time to head to the airport and hope back on a plane to Florence.

Assisi

Art History Field Trip to Assisi

Since I only have five weekends left here, I decided to mix up my fun and care-free travels with something a little more serious. So this past weekend I joined in on the art history class's field trip to Assisi, Arezzo, Urbino, and some other small random towns and seemed to hold significance to everyone but me. I went a long because I wanted to see Assisi, the trip was free including hotel, and all my friends were going. It sounds great, being able to go to all these museums, hear vital information about the architecture of churches and frescoes, but once you meet the teacher, Helen, you would understand the seriousness of the situation.

Helen has no last name, like Madonna, or Sting. She is either a well kept 70 or a hard lived 50. I tried to look at her hands as an indicator, but they never stayed still. She is a whirlwind, walking at a pace even my parents would have trouble keeping up with and constantly spouting a fountain of encyclopedic knowledge regarding every detail of a painting or church. She could talk for two hours about an alter that looks like every other renaissance alter, in fact she did talk for two hours about said alter, always in the same tone, no voice infliction is ever used.

Luckily for me though, I am not in the class and will not have to take a test on the information, so after about ten minutes I would simply shut of my headset with her voice being pounded into my skull, and walk around the church or museum in silence. I got to see some amazing things, including St. Francis church where his tomb is. It is the most elaborately decorated church, covered in frescoes that even I could love. His tomb is simply, fitting with his lifestyle, and surrounded by monks and other pilgrims, silently praying. We saw his old cell where there is a statue of him that two turtle doves live in. A long time ago a dove built a nest in the statue's hands and two of them have been there ever since. I am trying to stay idealistic and ignore the fact they are probably trained pets and simply a tourist attractions. Assisi, Arezzo, and Urbino are adorable walled cities, bustling with old women in aprons, men leaning out the window sills, fresh back bread and church bells. I tried to take in as much of the towns charm as possible as we speed walked across it, all of Helen's body titled forwards to propel herself as much as possible.

In Urbino we got a tour of the palace were Duke Fredrich lived (the man in that painting in the Uffizi with the huge nose). We saw the servant’s quarters, the master chambers, and heard all about the paintings that adorned the walls. I tried to listen, but at one point I started taking pictures with my friends trying to poise like the Duke instead.

There was lots of driving in the bus, but at the end of the day Saturday we were rewarded with an amazing farm fresh dinner at our "hotel". Eating family style with about half the kids of SACI was really fun and I got to know a lot of people I never would of meet otherwise. The unlimited wine helped this friendly atmosphere and by the time our four course dinner was done everyone immediately went to bed. That’s what a full day of art history does to you, makes you fall fast asleep despite the fact it was barely ten o'clock. Sunday was filled with more driving and art learning. I saw the only painting of a pregnant Virgin Mary, climbed a hill to an old tower, saw frescoes and paintings and "miracle crosses" until I had art knowledge coming out of my ears.
It was all worth it though, I don't think I would have made it to these small towns on my own, and hey, now if it ever comes up, I can talk about the different between Pietro's frescoes and Davied's in the Marches church. Oh I also saw Rapheals house, well his parent’s house, but he was born there. I only know he matters because a turtle ranger is named after him, but to everyone else in the class this was like the holy shrine of Renaissance painting. I looked interested, but really I was just eating gummy bears.

Lovely Prague in the Fall!

Communism Week Pt. 3-Prague

Our week ended in the beautiful Czech Republic with a three day stay in Prague. We met Sara's two roommates out there and had a hostel that was right near the central square and got to hear the trumpet from the clock tower every hour, it was wonderful. The city seemed like a mix of Florence and Paris, beautiful old buildings on twisty windy streets that were dotted with historical landmarks and high end stores. Surprisingly though Prague was my least favorite of everywhere we went simply because it was so overrun by tourist. Especially drunk British men.

We started out a trip with a visit to a bar called Propaganda which was filled with old posters and pins of the Communist. We got our first taste of Czech Pilsner here, which was good, but not nearly as great as they seem to think. The next day we walked up to the castle which was spectacle. It was huge and the church was filled with stained glass by one of my favorite artist Mucha. We hung out on the Charles Bridge, taking pictures, admiring the view and drinking warm wine. We had goulash for dinner which despite its name is surprisingly filling and sampled some of the local apple strudel.

The next day Bonnie and Colleen flew home and Sara and I did another free walking tour! We saw the Jewish district (every town must have one apparently) key churches, statues, the old town, new town, and Frank Gehry house. We went to the Mucha museum and saw a bunch of his orginal work and sketches. That night we searched for about four different restaurant's that our book suggested, all of which were full for some reason! After walking all over town in the cold we settled at a intimatee brew pub where we got to taste some home made beer and I had my fifth serving of Goulash, I really like it!

The next day we wondered about, saw a church that has a mummified human arm hanging from the ceiling (apparently the statue of Mary grabbed it when a thief tried to steal her necklace), saw the Jewish cemetery, and hung around some kind of festival in the main square. We then took the subway to the Prague airport with about 30 Czech crowns left between us...or a dollar and a half. At the airport we found our Easy Jet flight was delayed two hour due to weather, leaving us stuck at an airport at 6pm with no money to buy food. This was the only time in the trip Sara and my relationship became at all strained as we slowly ate the one granola bar we had and debated on which cracker to buy out of the vending machine. Finally our flight took off and we landed in Milan around 9pm. We then had to take a bus for an hour to the train station, where we searched for our hostel in the pouring rain and devoured a donner kebab that our lovely euros bought us. Our hostel room that night was the honeymoon suite. One bed for us to share surrounded by sensual paintings. The room did have a glass shower in it though , literally in the room, to be exact at the foot of the bed. We slept for about five hours before getting up and catching the 6am train back to Florence just in time for our 9am classes. A rude welcome back into Florence life but we were exhausted from the trip and ready to be back in our own beds.
The trip was amazing though and I could of kept going for a few more weeks; just exploring, trying new foods, discovering random streets, Florence life seems so mundane compared to our Eastern European adventures!

Buda looking towards Pest

The Turkish Bath

Eastern Europe Part 2. Budapest, Hungary

After our overnight train we arrived in Budapest at 8am, tired, but ready to see the city. Our first introduction to Hungary came when we tried to take money out of the ATM to find that our options were limited to amounts ranging from 10,000 to 100,000....200 Hungarian Fornitz is equal to 1 U.S Dollar. So carrying around a few thousand in your pocket is really nothing...The smallest bill is 500...100 and 200 are coins, going all the way down to 10 fornitz coin, which is equal to about half a penny. We easily found our hostel since the Pest side of the river (where almost everything is besides the castle) is set up like Paris, with two main avenues running pparallel and two that run perpendicular.
We set off and went to the Terror museum, a museum showing the history of the Nazi's and Communism in Hungary.It is in the building that the Nazi's and then the Communist actually used as their headquarters, complete with the actual dungeon in the basement. It was really interesting to see the history of all the countries we were visiting and understand what the people had endured in there past. As our Hungarian tour guide put it, "Hungary was once great and huge, then we chose the wrong side in WW1, then again in WW2, then the communist came to liberate us, then they stayed for 40 years just to make sure we really were liberated."

After the museum we walked even further down the road and saw Hero's square and found the Turkish bath house. Budapest has a ton of mineral and thermal springs so when the Turks came they built bath houses everywhere. This place was like a palace, huge and ornate. It was about 18 euro to get in, and having no swimsuits we went in our bra and underwear. There were about 18 indoor hot tubs of varying degrees from very warm to freezing, a lap pool filled with old Hungarians doing aerobics, and about 6 saunas. All that would of been enough to make us happy since it was in an amazing environment, but then we went outside and our minds were blown. It was the largest hot tub (with natural mineral water) I have ever seen. Probably 400 meters long and filled with statues and fountains shooting water jets. There were even bubbles people would stand on (it made water go in places water shouldn't)  and a whirl pool! It was like being a princess!

After becoming total prunes in the bath we hunted down a restaurant we had read about in our travel book. It was described as a small intimate place where the women just serves you whatever she is making in her kitchen. That was no exaggeration, the meal was wonderful, a sauerkraut sausage paprika thing, everything had paprika, apparently it is the spice of Hungary. We literally were sitting in someones basement though and the only other people in there were the old men friends of the family who were singing and dancing the whole time. We did met two Hungarian high school students there who took us to a bar after dinner. It was in the old Jewish ghetto and was an apartment building that had been abandoned and since turned into a bar. It was the coolest thing, a crumbling building filled with artwork and random Christmas lights, you could tell what used to be the bathroom and kitchen, all now filled with mismatched couches, graffiti and d.j's.

The next day we joined another free walking tour and saw the major sites of the city, including the castle on the Buda side of the river and the Parliament building; which is almost an exact replica of the one in London but one meter longer. Our guide told us all about life in Hungary and explained how in many ways it is still very  much stuck in a communist mind set. All the people seem slightly run down and tired, as do the buildings. Some amazing Victorian buildings were just completely deserted and slowly falling apart. About every fourth shop was vacant and some amazing mosaics and statues were just left in doorways, slowly being destroyed.

After the tour we walked around the castle a little more, climbed up a very high hill to see a statue and a view of Budapest, and then found the market where we bought some paprika. After that we decided to class it up a bit and went to the Opera house. It was only 2 euro for tickets to see the ballet and enjoy the pretty much all gold interior. The ballet was Gone with the Wind, very random but it was enjoyable despite the fact I had no idea what was going on. The weirdest part was that at the Opera house I ran into someone I knew from high school! She was studying abroad in Vienna and was on a school trip, talk about a small world.

Our last morning in Budapest we went to the Synagogue (which was restored after the war by Jamie Lee Curtis's father) and then walked back to the train station to set off for Prague.

Sara, Alexis (Our polish guide and translator), and I in Poland!

All Saints day in Poland

Communism Week part 1-Krakow, Poland

I got a week off of school Starting October 30th, so me and my friend Sara Abad packed our small backpacks with enough clean underwear and headed off for nine days for eastern Europe! It was an amazing week and I am so glad I went to the places I did. The first stop on our trip was Krakow, Poland where my friend from home Alexis is studying. I had no idea what to expect about Poland, in no way is it somewhere yo often hear of tourists going and I had no preconceived notions as to what Krakow held. According to Rick Steve's it is "The Boston of Europe," that was all the convincing I needed.

We left Florence on Saturday the 30th and took a Ryan air flight to Krakow. We arrived latish in the evening but Alexis quickly met us at our hostel and brought us to a Peruogi restaurant. A perougi is the polish version of a dumpling, with anything inside from cheese and potatoes (the classic type) or sweet cheese and fruit. This was my first introduction into A. how good perougi's are, and B. just how much the Polish love their potatoes and their carbs!
After dinner we went to this great bar in the Jewish quarter. It was dark, stone (one of the first bars ever in Krakow), and it was entirely lit by candlelight! Can you imagine a pub in the U.S. have candles on the wooden tables with college kids all around! Adding to the very old fashion appearance of the bar was the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors in eastern Europe, so a thick haze of cigarette smoke fills all the bars and pubs, making my limited amount of clothing reek. Krakow has this great drink, which is a mix of light beer and either ginger or raspberry syrup. They were both great! And the ginger beer went especially well with meals.
The next day we had a great little breakfast at our hostel and then met up with Alexis at an antique flea market. After being tempted by multiple communism relics we left and went to a free walking tour of the city. It was the best thing since they work off of tips they want to make sure you have a good time. We learned all about the important buildings, the legends behind various statues, saw the castle, the dragons lair, about a million statues of Pope John Paul the second, and the largest medieval square in Europe. We took a quick lunch break (sauerkraut and sausage) and then started the tour again to see the Jewish quarter. We saw the old synagogues, the memorials, the ghetto where Roman Polanski escaped from, and Oskar Schindler's factory. It was really amazing.

The next day was all Saints Day and everything was closed, but we walked around the church again, wandered the river, and then made our way over to one of the largest cemetery's of Europe. It was probably a mile by a mile and it appeared that it was not night out at all but day with the millions of burning candles. We wandered throughout the cemetery and every single tomb had candles and flowers on it, some were covered with dozens and dozens of candles. The nuns and monks go around and make sure no one is left unattended and place candles and flowers on the graves where relatives were not around to do it. It was like looking out at a sea of candles which gently illuminated the headstones. By far one of the most interesting and breathtaking things I have ever seen. To add to the slightly spooky demeanor of it they very small church at the edge of the cemetery was broadcasting mass over loudspeakers.

We got on a train that night around ten to take the overnight to Budapest. We were slightly nervous about who our other bunk mates may be on the ten hour journey through Slovakia and Hungary but we entered to find a very nice couple on the bottom bunk and two dopey British boys on the middle bunks. We climbed up to our top bunks and semi-slept through the train journey. At one point the train split apart, with half going to Prague and half going to Budapest...we hoped we were on the right car going to Budapest and fell back asleep.