Parents Weekend Rome Edition

It was great to have my parents come and visit the weekend after fall break. For months they had told me that my sister would not be coming because she could not miss school but as soon as I came to the apartment they surprised me with her. It was really cool to have her in Rome because I could show her everywhere that I had been going in person and not jus through pictures (she would take care of that plenty). The first say I was able to bring them around the area that my school is located. I brought them to an overlook point near a fountain where you can see the entire city. At that point it felt really cool to know the city well enough to know that this location existed outside of the the tourist center.

Overlooking Rome

From there we went to the area of Trestevere. My mom continuously mentioned how she thought the area looked like a movie set, I guess I have become accustomed to this style of architecture after seeing it for months. Of course, later that week we did all of the tourist attractions: Colosseum, Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. Even though this sis more a tourist attraction than that of the overlook fountain, I took them to the the top of the Vittorio Emanuel monument in Piazza Venezia where you can see every site in Rome. That night I took them to my favorite pizza place, Dar Poeta, for amazing Italian pizza and good wine.

Another day we went to the Vatican City with a private tour. The Vatican was really cool and seeing the Sistine Chapel was also really cool. These are locations that you hear about for years at home and are constantly in movies but to see them in person was awesome. That Monday we went to Florence for a day trip. Florence was really cool, we saw the Ponte Vecchio and climbed the Duomo. The Duomo was interesting with it's extremely detailed exterior. The view from the top was spectacular and it was interesting to see how the city really did all have matching architecture. The best part of the trip though had to be the Florentine Steak dinner. It was the best steak I've had in a very long time and the pasta appetizers are spectacular.

Duomo in Florene

Even though my parents had already seen Rome it was a different experience seeing the area of Trestevere that I live in that more closely resembles a classic Italian residential area. It was also great having my sister meet some of my friends and being able to show her some of the Italian night life. 

Seeing the apartment

Bologna: The City of Letters

Many people do not know about Bologna. Bologna is a city in the center of Italy and has one of the largest Universities in Italy. Bologna may not have much significance but to my friends and I Bologna is where our Fraternity, Kappa Sigma, was founded in 1400's. We decided to take a one night trip by a three hour train ride. It was really cool to see all of the sights that are in our rituals. There isn't much that I can say in detail that isn't Ritual related but one of the coolest things that we did was climb to the top of Torre Degli Asinelli (part of the two towers piazza). It has an amazing view of the city. For dinner we tried Spaghetti Bolognese, another Bologna staple, and at night we found some english speaking bars because even with our limited Italian knowledge we are still totally lost in Italian bars.

view from the top

artsy picture of the towers

AEKDB(Kappa Sig thing) from the top of the tower

Overall I would say it was a great experience because I got to see places that I have learned about as a Brother of Kappa Sigma and got to see them with fellow Brothers.

London Weekend

For my final trip I decided to take a trip to London. This trip was different than any other trip that I took all year. First off I did this on by myself. I stayed with a friend who was studying in London and I was able to use a train to get to the airport in both Rome (Fiumicino) and London (Gatwick). While trying to get to the airport in Rome I was told that the trains had very large delays and it really got me worried. Luckily, after an hour wait (which should have been 15 minutes) a train came and brought me to the airport in plenty of time for my flight. I'm happy that this delay happened though because it allowed me to meet a couple from London that was actually on my flight. I helped them with the trains, even though neither one of us could understand the announcements, (if you think English conductors are hard to understand try it in a foreign language) I was able to look at the departure board and it said that a train was coming soon.

Big Ben from the London Eye

After the train fiasco the trip was pretty easy from the Gatwick airport to Victoria Station using their railway system. London was amazing overall. I was expecting for it to be rainy and cold the entire weekend but it was actually about 40 degrees and barely ever rained. I arrived Thursday night around 1am so we just hung out at her school. My friend in London studies at a school in Regents Park, completely opposite from me in Rome she lives in dorms and does not need to leave campus to get to class and also had a dining hall. Honestly I prefer living in apartments in Rome, it has allowed me to completely adapt to Roman and Italian culture by having to deal with the sporadic buses and store closures just like all the local residents.

Friday I was a tourist. First stop? CHIPOTLE! Italian food is amazing but it can be very repetitive. The thing that struck me most about London Chipotle happened when they ran out of rice. For those that eat chipotle, chipotle without rice isn't at all worth it but all the locals behind me had not problem getting it with extra beans, my friends and I decided to wait it out like normal Americans. Later that day I saw the London Bridge, did the London Eye and saw Big Ben. It was really cool to see things that I've seen in movies for years. Later that night we went out in Camden area at a bar with 90's music and good beer. It felt like a higher end college bar which was really cool.

Tower Bridge

Saturday was my favorite day. We went to a soccer game: West ham United v Fulham. For those that have seen the move Green Street Hooligans West ham United is the team that the main characters are supporters of. This was my third soccer game in Europe (Barcelona and Rome being the others). It was really cool because even though these teams in particular aren't the top of the league, they are still in the Premier League in England which is a top league in the world. West ham United won 3-0 in a packed stadium. European soccer is really fun to attend, constant cheering and loyal fan support.






Overall London was a great experience and I would return in a second.

West Ham United v Fulham

This about sums up Italy perfectly

Fall Break Part 3: Amsterdam

Amsterdam was a really fun experience. We were there from Wednesday until we left to go back to Rome on Sunday. Amsterdam was a city unlike any other. Even though Amsterdam has a reputation of being a city that acts a certain way, I didn't feel that from just walking around. It was weird t me because as a city most of the people speak English and most of the restaurants are chain places, not local cuisine. In the words of a friend who is currently studying abroad in Amsterdam, "There really isn't a local cuisine here. It's known for it's French fries (with a lot of different sauces, they're amazing) but most of the places that I go to eat are chains of American type food."

Walking up the street to the fair

As I walked around the city the most noticeable thing are all of the bikes. This city is known for being bike friendly because it is so flat and has a bike lane on every street. I found myself having to avoid the bikes more than the cars themselves. They also have a great metro system of trams and buses that were very useful for getting around. We spent most of the day on Thursday and Friday roaming around the city without any plan. We did the Anne Frank House on Thursday morning which was very cool. It was interesting to finally see the house that I had heard so much about and it met all of my expectations.

On Saturday we met up with a friend of mine who is studying abroad in Amsterdam and he showed us to the "I am Amsterdam" sign. He made a good point that reinforced the idea that Amsterdam is lacking a certain local culture: The "I am Amsterdam" sign is in English, not Dutch. Later that day we went to the Heineken Factory. That was one of my favorite things because I love beer and am very interested in how it is made; so seeing a model factory was very cool.

"I am Amsterdam"

All in all it was an amazing 10 days. I spent a week in 3 cities, 3 countries with 3 different languages and 3 different currencies. Even missing the train added to the experience.

Next up Parents weekend. 

Fall Break Part 2: Praha

Prague is an amazing city. As you wander the city all you can see are castles everywhere. The cobble stone streets everywhere make the city feel like its one big movie set. We arrived from Budapest on a 5:30am train that took seven hours to get to Prague. If you have ever seen the Movie Eurotrip the train was exactly like that, six seater cars with individual doors on each six person section. Some of you may be asking why we would ever want to take a 5:30am train? Well we didn't; we missed our overnight train originally that was supposed to be a sleeper cabin with 6 beds. We ended up finding out that our tickets were still valid for the next day so we found empty seats and slept in the seats for 7 hours (or more like took 20minute naps for 7 hours).

Prague Castle

Ok now back to talking about Prague. We were only in Prague from Monday morning to Wednesday afternoon but that was plenty of time to explore the city. We walked around and just really roamed the city the first day we were there. We got some pork and potatoes for dinner and found some bars that were suggested from friends that have previously studied there at night.

Lennon Wall

On the second day we spent most of the day sightseeing. We walked over the the Charles Bridge which was really cool and took it over to the Prague castle. The castle was really cool because it is huge. It sits atop the hill across the river and it can be seen from almost everywhere in the city. We didn't pay to go inside of it but instead just walked around the grounds. I was taken back from all the detail work that is put into and how old it is. Its always amazing how in Europe everything is so much older than in the USA.

Later that day we went over to the Lennon Wall. I'm still not completely sure how this wall because famous and why it became a center for Graffiti but there is a large Lennon face on it. From what I learned it was a center from youth rebellion and they used Beatles lyrics to air their grievances and in turn it became known as the Lennon Wall.

Overall I really enjoyed Prague. It is relatively cheap because it is not on the EUR and it feels like a movie set that isn't part of Europe at all. It was certainly a great middle part for Fall break.

Astronomical Clock in Prague

I promise more posts to come soon including Part 3: Amsterdam and Parents Weekend rome edition. 

Fall Break Part 1: Budapest

Overview
Budapest was probably my favorite city out of all three. The best way for me to describe the city is that it is kind of a Hipster city. It's more industrialized than Rome (Everywhere is) but not as rugged and mechanic almost as Munich for example. It had amazing architecture and history everywhere. We used a tour company called WSA. WSA stands for Weekend Student Adventures and is run by the author of the famous Rick Steve's travel books' son Andy Steves. Unlike Bus2Alps WSA uses local tour guides which personally I think was much better. Our group was 13 total (11 being my Friends). It was very laid back and the culture and food was amazing.

Infront of a church in Budapest

The currency conversion certainly helped, 200HUF = 1USD, and the average dish at a restaurant is about 1,200HUF. We spent most days touring the city, seeing churches and eating really good food. Also really cool were the thermal baths. There is thermal water under the city and they are fed into natural baths in the great bath hall in the middle of the city. It was beautiful and is even used for physical therapy in Budapest. I had really good orange duck one night at the restaurant we went to saw amazing views of the Buda Hills.

Highlights

Ready for caving

My favorite thing was on Saturday we went caving. This is absolutely ridiculous. I crawled through really tight spaces in the Buda Hills. (Budapest is actually Buda and Pest separated by a river but act as one city, Buda is hills and Pest is a flatter city.) We went through this thing called the "Sandwich" because you literally squeeze your body through this REALLY SMALL HOLE and in the end I felt really accomplished. Another favorite part was the ruin pubs. These are pubs that all have unique character and are built into the side of rocks or underground. We went to a really big one that had really cool robot things everywhere and another that was all Mexican with tequila. It was definitely a new experience. Lastly, the Grand market was awesome. its a really huge building (pictures in twitter too) that's filled with different vendors selling fruit, meals and small jewelry. Oh and can't forget the Sparty (Spa Party in the thermal baths Saturday night).

Budapest Parliament

We left Sunday night to take a train to Prague. We actually missed our overnight train and took a 5:30am train to Prague, wasn't too bad in the end.

Next up Prague 

Just some of my friends before the thermal baths