Posts tagged living abroad

Months here: 5

Countries visited: 5 (Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, Germany)

Operas seen: 10 (Orfeo, La Traviata, Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro, Magic Flute, Salome, Otello, Acis and Galatea, Fidelio, Barber of Seville)

Favorite opera: Barber of Seville

Concerts gone to: 12

Favorite concert: Spanish Guitars in Barcelona

Kilos of Nutella eaten: 5.5, let’s not talk about it

Best city: Seville

Most moving: Auschwitz

Cones of gelato: innumerable

Favorite gelato: Tiramisu or Rose

Meal I am most proud of: Fresh calamari

Favorite meal out: Pumpkin riavioli in swordfish sauce at Alle Testiere

Best group meal: Family style in Rome (wine was also family style)

Best laugh: Pompeii over dinner

Best cry: With mom on the couch

Favorite chruch: Toss up between La Sagrada Familia and church in Krakow

Famous paintings seen: also innumerable (Birth of Venus, Last Supper, The David,

Titian’s Assuntion, a lot of Bellini)

Favorite snack: Tapas at Sagardi

Favorite ruin: House of the Vestal Virgins

Best Month: October

Books read: 13+

Finals taken: 6

Papers written: 4 (this semester was a joke)

It’s been a whack-o week. Totally whacko. We spent from Friday to Tuesday studying the ancient ruins in Rome. We had many group dinners together which was really nice, but touring the ruins all day every day was really exhausting. On Wednesday we picked up and went to Napoli where we sampled the original pizza (SO DELICIOUS) and saw the archaeology museum. It seems to me that Napoli is a pretty version of the Bronx, but still pretty much the Bronx. That evening we took a train to Pompeii and checked into our hotel.

The next day, Thursday, we spent all day in Pompeii which was very cool. I have pictures, but the internet here is too slow to upload right now. I got back to the hotel room and the girls I shared a room with kept asking me to get them spare blankets, to which I replied no since they are big girls. After about 30 minutes of negotiations, they agreed to give me the extra pillow in the room if I’d get them blankets. Alright, fine. I go to open the closet and A MAN JUMPS OUT. It was actually a guy from our trip but I still pretty much shrieked and ran around in circles. Well played, men, well played.

After dinner, my hotel roomies and I decide to return the favor. Two of us hide in the closet and the other two hide in the bathroom. From the closet, we hear the men successfully scared by the bathroom girls. After TWO MORE HOURS, one of the guys finally opens the closet door. He accidentally gets hit in the head by the closet door but, you know, sacrifices in the name of humor.

Friday we take the train to Ercolano, which is a city near Pompeii that has ruins that are ever better preserved. Herculaneum was the ancient beach resort town and it was covered in hot mud rather than ash. It is so well preserved, there are still wooden beams in tact, and there are bits of food and rope that have survived.

Then we take the train back to Napoli and get more delicious food. Naples is really cheap, for anyone interested in having delicious food for little money. You just have to be comfortable with whole mob thing. My friends leave for Rome at 3, but my train isn’t until 645. I just hung around the train station since I didn’t feel great about wandering around Napoli at sunset carrying a hot pink carry on and a Coach side bag.

I make it to my train with a bag of McDonalds. There are little cabins on the train, each has six seats: three on one side, three on the other. This means no laying down. I get into my cabin and there are three men and one youngish woman. Two of the guys were together so they were talking and they kept taking calls on speakerphone. To retaliate, the girl would play her music over speakers. It was really pleasant. The girl got off after a few stops and in my head I went, “Oh hellz no, I am not staying in this cabin with three men.” So, I took my stuff and walked around until I found a cabin with one other woman. After maybe three hours two more people showed up who were assigned for that cabin, but they brought a whole bon voyage crew with them so I left, thinking all of those people were meant to be sitting there. The next time I walked by there were only three people in there but I didn’t want to disturb them since they were sleeping.

I went back to my assigned cabin and a very rotund couple had joined us. I sat down and started watching a movie on my computer. The man of the couple was across from me and he stood up after eating a sandwich. The crumbs that had been resting on his stomach fell onto my keyboard so, make of that what you will. The other single guy in the cabin cracked the window but the two big dudes complained. We closed it but after about an hour I asked if we could open it again because it was like a goddamn sauna in there. I finally decided to go to sleep around 12. I strapped my documents to my body and wrapped the straps of my carry on around every limb it could reach. I was awoken at 145 by the two big dudes saying goodbye to a someone else from the train. I was closest to the door, so they were literally leaning on me to hug this guy at the door. I thought I was being robbed, they’re lucky I didn’t kick them.

At 230 my alarm went off and then I fell back asleep because I’m an idiot. By some black magic I woke back up at 250 and we arrived at Bologna Centrale at 3 am. Funny story, Bologna Centrale isn’t like Penn Station. It’s not a station where there are shops and benches. It’s just a series of tracks. HAHAHAHA good. What do you do at 3 am in a city you’ve never been to and when there are no cafes open at 3 am? You sit around. You evade the drunk man who gets into a fight with a cop. You watch the attractive Marine get onto his train. You count the seconds.

At 530 a cafe finally opened. I went in and more hahas. The outlets dont work. So, my phone dies. I had planned to spend the day visiting Bologna but I was sort of fed up and I didn’t want my mom worrying so I hopped the next bus to the airport. When I arrived at 710 am it was still dark, so I guess it was a good choice. I have been hanging out here waiting for my 420 pm flight to Krakow.

In review, I have been the same jeans and itchy sweater (bad life choice) for over 24 hours. I haven’t been able to brush my teeth. I smell from sweating out all my toxins on the sauna/train. Get me to Poland.

Recap Seville: My favorite European city thus far. It was like everything I was expecting from Venice, plus cheap food. I saw a flamenco show, drank sangria like they were stopping production, gazpacho, tapas, took a bike ride, tapas tour with my hostel, mad crazy gelato. It was incredible and beautiful and warm. The waiters were ruder than most, but still, the city was amazing. My favorite part was renting a bike because a) I needed some physical activity and b) the bike paths in Seville are so easy and clear. I went alongside the river for about two hours, went down to the park with the Plaza Espana (where I want to live forever) and then went back to my hostel and got lunch. Everything was peachy until the girl I was traveling with invited a friend of hers from Venice to come stay with us and it was like I stopped existing. Suddenly, Seville lost the rosy tint. I suppose the company around you really does effect experience.

Tomorrow, we as a class leave for Vienna at 930 AM. My sister lands in Venice at 130 PM. Really, really unfortunate. I still wish I were running the marathon on Sunday. It makes me want to cry seeing the ramps they’ve put over the bridges out by the water for the runners, I just want to be running this marathon. In Italy. With my sister. The one I trained for and told EVERYONE about. I kind of feel like a loser because I told so many people and now….nothing. I am still SO EXCITED for Courtney to run the marathon and then be here. I need some real people time. I just want to talk about something other than drinking and hook ups and gossip for five seconds. When I do something dumb, Courtney tells me to my face, I rectify it as best I can and we move on. Same goes for her. I don’t understand why this kind of normal human behavior isn’t commonly practiced amongst college students.

Anyway, we leave for Vienna, come back Tuesday. Courtney leaves the following Friday. We have an opera Sunday, then my parents arrive the next Friday. They stay till Thursday. The next day, we go to Rome for a week. Then I go to Poland for a week. Then a week off, then my best friend comes from London to stay for a week. Then 10 days till I am home. I hate to wish it away but man, I am missing New Jersey hard.

We are officially in Seville! Now let me backtrack….

We took the metro (couldn’t take the bus, everything was closed for a Saints (don’t remember which) Day) up to Park Guell. And by up to Park Guell I mean up the mountain but then we still got to ride the ESCALATORS that go up the center of the mountain to the park. So cool. Gorgeous views of Barcelona, a perfect weather day, I could not have asked for better conditions to see the city I’ve been dreaming of going to ever since I presented on it in 7th grade. After the park, we made our way down the mountain and walked back into the city, passing every Gaudi house along the way. That man was insane.

We went back to Sagardi and got ourselves a few more toothpicks of tapas and more cider. Damn, I already miss that cider. The lightest beer ever with a nice kick to it. So yum. We went and saw Maria del Mar and then took a brief siesta/packing stop.

We attempted to go back to the market to get my hands on some mint lemonade, but no luck. Closed for the holiday. We continued to stroll (ramble?) down La Rambla and eventually decided to just get an early dinner. Good choice.

Look, I hate peppers. When I go to James’ house I miss out on all this really incredible looking food because I won’t eat the peppers. Not that I haven’t tried, for some reason I just never really took to their flavor. But on this day, I found a deep love for the taste of red bell pepper. Muscles, drenched in this pepper/tomato steam bath. I was dying. We should’ve skipped the entree and had another pot of those. They were so good. Yes, pictures to come. Then we had paella and wrapped it up with Crema Catalana (best description I can come up with is flan pudding but better).

I took a walk down to the marina again, just to get some thinking and goodbye time in to the city and reminded me Europe isn’t entirely a tourist trap and went back home to sleep. Unfortunately, I tossed all night and didn’t actually get to sleep till 1.

(Before I go on, everyone who is staying in Barcelona should stay at the Itaca Hostel, eat at Sagardi, and go stroll down Argenteria in the evening).

THATS FUNNY BECAUSE WE GOT UP AT 2 TO GO TO THE AIRPORT. So, up at 2. Night bus at 3. Airport at 4. Flight at 5:55. Possibly the single most miserable traveling experience I’ve ever had. Let’s not linger.

After wasting a day of staring at a wall wanting to do (arrived in Seville at 8, couldn’t check in to our new hostel till 1) I made up my mind that no matter how miserable I was I would go on the evening tapas tour. You pay 14 euros, they take you to three bars to eat, drink and be merry. Well, let me tell you, I thought sangria was good in Barcelona but the sangria I had last night was on a totally different level. At one point, it was brought out to us in beer pint mugs. I love Seville. No, really, I love Seville.

Seville is like everything I want Venice to be. In as much as Venice is stunning because it’s a floating Seville, everything is goddamn expensive! Also, I like my food. Venetian bars do not serve delicious, delicious bite sized gourmet deliciousness on a stick while I drink liquored up fruit juice. THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. In addition, women in Spain don’t look like the toothpicks their food comes on. Refreshing.

So, anyway, three bars, 6 tapas platters at each bar, sangria, 1 hour sleep, and our last stop was a salsa bar. You do the math. Yes, I have a video.

Today is a walking tour, followed by hopefully me getting out to the bullfighting ring, the art museum and the flamenco museum. Tonight is dinner and a flamenco show. Ole!

On Saturday, my friend Anneliese and I hopped on a plane taking us to Barcelona, kicking off our 8 day tour of Spain (which includes Barcelona and Seville). We flew past the Alps and over the Appenine mountains, then an hour and 20 minutes later our caption told us we’d be landing. Excuse me? We are over and ocean, will you be pulling a Captain Sully and landing us in water? No thank you. Sure enough, apparently 8 seconds before we touched down, I saw land. Thank god.

From the airport we took a bus to Palaca Catalunya. From there we walked on a road parallel to La Rambla, about 5 minutes to our hostel “Itaca Hostel.” To anyone looking for a place to stay in Barcelona, I highly recommend this hostel. 24 reception service, locked doors, lockers, kitchen, free wifi, helpful staff, etc etc etc. Really a great place. Since this is vacation, we decided we were just going to take this week easy. I got out and buy food stuffs for breakfast/lunch/snacks for the days we are here, and Anneliese preps to go to “Sensation” (huge rave, google it if you’re in to that kind of thing). Yesterday we wandered around the city eating everything we encountered, and went to the Picasso museum. We had delicious tapas and paella for lunch and later that night I went to a concert of four spanish guitarists, which was mind blowing in ways I never expected.

This is backpacking so let’s be honest. I am here with two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a dress. Plus some underwear. We aren’t exactly on a luxury vacation but it has been very convenient having very little stuff. Tip about Barcelona: If you learned spanish in a public school in the US, you are sort of out of luck. Oranges are not naranjas and a lot of words have x’s. Good luck. So, I grabbed a bottle of “shampoo” at the store which ended up being conditioner. Result? I am now washing my hair with hand soap. Good times for everyone.

Today we went and saw La Sagrada Familia and sort of had our minds blown. Then more tapas. Then gelato with hot chocolate over it. I feel gross. We ate our tapas dinner at this place called Sagardi. It was more chill than other places we’d been to, you picked up a plate and took whatever you wanted off the bar. Then you handed your plate back to the bartender when you were done and they charged 1.80 per toothpick left on your plate. Washed down with some cider (I’d say comparable to a very light beer), it made for a perfect late dinner. Now we are hanging out, enjoying vacation. I approve.