Orvieto

Last weekend was a much needed weekend in Rome.

On Saturday, about 30 students went on a school sponsored day trip to a neighboring town - Orvieto. It wasn't terribly exciting, but we were given a DELICIOUS and FREE lunch.

We drove about 2 hours by bus and then had to get into this tram to take us to the top of the hill/mountain.

View from Orvieto ^ and Brendan tempting fate.

My friends Ryan (LeMoyne) Brendan (John Carroll) and Mike at the top

Sweet Cathedral in Orvieto

(Nick that's the sweatshirt I bought you..)

We were back by dinner time and headed to my first Roma game!

The game was a ton of fun and our section was FULL of JFRC-ers.

(Mike is pictured way top left in blue)

I'm the only one not in a Roma shirt-

(Nick I'm again wearing the blue Italia jersey I bought ya :)

The girl behind me, was wearing a Yesterdog sweatshirt recently,

and I found out she went to City High. Small world.

I go to Rome and meet Grand Rapidians.

VICTORY!

DUBLIN

This is my last Spring Break post - promise.

Dublin had undoubtably the nicest atmosphere and people of the 3 countries we explored. AND they spoke English - but it had to have been the hardest of the 3 accents to understand.

Friday morning Mike and I arrived in Dublin - as RyanAir is based in Dublin we did not have a 2 hour shuttle into the city like we did in Barcelona and Paris. The weather was gorgeous and we were given towels at our hostel - bonus. Took much needed showers and headed to the Guinness Storehouse. Dublin is home to both the Guinness Storehouse and Jameson Distillery.

The Guinness Storehouse is the tallest building in Dublin, and after finding out all about the founding of the Guinness Factory, Arthur Guinness, and how it is made/brewed, we were given a free Guinness on the top floor overlooking the city. Undoubtably the freshest Guinness I'll ever have.

Dublin was in no way the 'prettiest' city that we saw, but I loved it.

Saturday was a Rugby day-

Wales vs. Ireland

Six Nations

The game was awesome. Our seats were incredible.

Both of our first experiences of professional rugby.

And... Ireland won!

Sunday we wandered around before our flight,

bought our souvenirs, and saw Trinity College.

All in all, best. spring break. ever.

This weekend seems to be the J-Force weekend for Dublin.

At least 20+ people headed to Ireland including my room mate and the rugby boys.

I am headed to London, and thanks to the British Airways strike, will not be back until Monday! I watched Harry Potter 1 in preparation as King's Cross will be on my agenda. (embarrassing)

Paris (Belated)

After getting into Paris very very late at night, we found our way to our hostel thanks to Anne Marie and Nick navigating us about the metro system. Here is a picture of our hostel called the "Young and Happy" haha.

Atleast Nick was happy! I wanted some sleep..

We woke up bright and early and Anne Marie and Nick took a water bus tour, and Mike and I went on a free English tour by the same company that gave us our Munich tour. We both saw all the sights and learned a lot about Paris. There was so much to see! My student visa was able to get me into the Louvre for free, and we were told it would get us in free to Versailles, but the workers in Versailles were not as accommodating with our lack of mastery of the French language.

The Mona Lisa was very secure. And SMALL!

These few pictures really do not do Paris justice.

It was awesome.

The next day, we met up at the Hard Rock

and said our good byes as Anne Marie and Nick were off to Venice.

Pictured: Ice Water

Not Pictured: Cherries

-------------------

Mike and I spent the afternoon at Versailles - which was awesome.

King Louis became King at the age of 5, and grew up very paranoid.

He moved the whole court out to Versailles - all the nobles.

The palace, grounds and gardens were absolutely huge.

SB Part 2 - Barcelona!

You're supposed to be able to see the Mediterranean from there!

Very early Sunday morning, the four of us headed to Barcelona and arrived around noon. We had our first RyanAir experience - which is one I never want to repeat. 3/4 flights were on time over spring break, but RyanAir is nothing but organized chaos. No seat assignments makes for an interesting free for all. Our hostel was great! Just off the main strip Las Ramblas. We wandered for most of the day and Mike acted as our tour guide as he had been there before. Monday we woke up early to do a hop-on hop-off bus tour. As soon as the tour started, it began to snow! Barcelona sees snow about once every 6 years and we were there that one day. A couple inches ended up sticking to the ground making the bus ride interesting. They eventually cancelled our tour, which was fine because we had seen the two main stops that we were interested in - Gaudi's Park Guell and Familia Segrada.

Tuesday however was beautiful! Sunny with a high of 75. No joke.

We walked to the beach and tried so paella (not a fan..) and explored until our flight Tuesday night to Paris.

Mike and the paella. ^^

Today is a beautiful day in Roma, and I'm headed on a day trip to Orvieto tomorrow.

Calcio news - our star player tore her ACL in our game on Wed. after getting a hattrick.

I have unbelievable bruises from this week's game.

But my team chocolate prevailed over team purple.

Ciao, Lex

Anne Marie and Nick come to Roma!

Spring Break '10 Part 1

To kick off Spring Break, Anne Marie and Nick got into Rome early Saturday morning.

They hit the ground running and we packed in a very full day.

First we started with the Colosseum!

And then we headed to the Trevi Fountain:

The legend is that if you throw a coin

with your right hand over your left shoulder you will return to Rome.

We had some gelato and walked through the Pantheon and up the Spanish Steps.

^^Anne Marie and Nick at the top of the steps^^

And then we made our way over to St. Peter's square

That's all for now.

I'll update soon with tales of our travels to Barcelona, Paris, and Dublin!

Munich, Germany

Taking a break from studying for my midterms, I'll briefly describe this past awesome weekend in Munich. The three boys and Emily waited for me to finish class on Friday (as I was the only to have a make-up class) and then we were off for our 7:00p.m. flight to Germany. It was only and hour and a half before I had some major culture shock. This was the first non-Italian city I had visited and it was completely different from Rome or the other places I have been. Munich was clean, efficient, and looked like a modern city. All I knew upon arrival was Guten Tag! (Hello) and Auf Wiedersehen! (Good Bye, thank you Sound of Music). We checked into our hostel and hung out there for the night and watched some of the Olympics as we planned our big day - Saturday.

Saturday started with what I think was a typical German breakfast - sausages, a huge pretzel, and .. a beer? We went to an open market and ate outside where we saw men and women of all ages drinking beer with breakfast. The couple next to us let their daughter (I'm guessing she was no older than 7 or 8) finish their beers.

Next was the Glockenspiel (pictured above)-

The Rathaus-Glockenspiel of Munich is a tourist attraction in Marienplatz the heart of Munich. Part of the second construction phase of the New Town Hall, it dates from 1908. Every day at 11 a.m. it chimes and re-enacts two stories from the 16th century to the amusement of mass crowds of tourists and locals. It consists of 43 bells and 32 life-sized figures.

Then we took a Free English Tour that our Hostel set us up with - we saw a lot in the 3 hours: The Royal Residence, The National Theater/Opera House, the Church of St. Peter, The Old Town Hall which is actually newer than the New Town Hall, the Hofbräuhaus, and much more.

I knew Pope Benedict was from Germany, but didn't realize he was from Bavaria! It was cool to see the Church where he was the Archbishop, sample his favorite beer etc. It really humanized him and made him seem like a more down-to-earth guy.

(The JFRC kids in front of the Hofbräuhaus)

We also did a tour of some of the most famous beer halls. The Hofbräuhaus being 1st on the list of the 1000 beer halls in Bavaria. The Hofbräuhaus in Munich was one of the beer halls used by the Nazi Party to declare policies and hold functions: On February 24, 1920, Adolf Hitlerproclaimed the twenty-five theses of the National Socialist program at the Hofbräuhaus. Before he turned to politics, one of Hitler's watercolors was of the Hofbräuhaus, which also held a 1889 baby photo of Hitler as recently as 2006.

The tour was interesting as our guide discussed the difficult subject of the rise of National Socialism, telling us about the fantastic job the people of Munich did to restore the inner city from almost complete destruction during WWII and how the Germans deal with their actions throughout this period in history.
Sunday we wandered the city, eating some Haagen Dazs, and exploring the less touristy places as there isn't much activity on Sundays. Emily was able to go back to where her dad grew up, and we made it back to Rome around 10 p.m.

2 more days and then Spring Break is here - Can't wait to see Anne Marie and Nick on Saturday!

Venezia 2/19-2/21

Two weekends ago was my trip to Venice.

We took a high speed train on the way there,

which only took about 3 hours.

Our hostel was on the mainland,

only a 10 minute/1 euro train ride away from Venice proper.

The next day, we headed into Venice and it rained. all. day.

What else is new.

We broke out the umbrellas and

bought 36 hour passes for the vaporetto service. (water bus)

Very weird/strange place. No cars. No roads. Lots of water.

I was stunned at how quickly I became used to

taking boats everywhere instead of a subway or bus,

and every once in a while I had to remind myself

where we were and really appreciate it all.

We went to Murano, and island where all the glass blowing is done -

apparently they were moved there

because their kilns would start fires on the main islands,

there we watched some glass sculpting.

We wandered around more,

and Colin played tour guide while

we took the vaporetto down the grand canal,

reading from his travel book about

what all the different buildings were that we passed.

We headed back and hung out at the hostel,

after searching for a non-existent night life.

The next day we just attempted to get lost in Venice all day,

and somehow wound up seeing the same places several times....

We were some sort of twilight zone

where every turn put us back in the same piazza.

Our train ride back was pretty awful,

we saved money by taking an overnight train,

11:30 pm-7:30amish and didn't buy sleeper cars.

Thankfully I can sleep anywhere.

COOL HATS!

This post doesn't really do Venice the justice it deserves,

because Venice was my coolest trip UNTIL Munich.