Reflection

Buongiorno! (For the last time)

Well, this has been quite a trip and there's definitely a lot to reflect on. First of all, I'm completely convinced that I had the best time that I could have had during this entire time abroad. I seriously think that I got the most out of it that I could have and I have absolutely no regrets about anything I did. I learned way more than there is room to type, about myself, the world, people, culture, everything. It's crazy how much you can learn about yourself and everything else in such a short amount of time.

Bicerin!

I met so many great people and I saw so much, I really never thought the trip would have been this successful, and somehow, I was able to do all of the things I did. One of the most valuable things that I learned from this trip was the connection that I had with people. It was even mentioned during my orientations before I left, but you don't truely realize it until you take the trip; the people that you meet and the experiences you have with them are far more valuable than any city or site you see. I traveled to 11 different countries and saw countless sites. The most fond memories I will have on this trip were the times that I had with my friends. Whether it was a weekend in France or a meal after class, those things will stick out to me more than anything, because I made some awesome friends over there, from all over the world. It's crazy how much it impacts you, especially when you get back. You create such strong bonds with people over there, even if you've only known them for a month or two, it's like you've been friends for years. But I still can't help but appreciate all of the places I was able to go to. It still blows me away to think of all of the places that I visited. I really saw the whole experience as a dream, like nothing I did over here had a direct impact on me when I got home, simply because it "wasn't real" (which can be dangerous sometimes haha). But it really does feel like that, and I think everyone else on my program can agree with that. It was funny, I told my parents when I got back that I didn't see my flight back as returning home, I saw it more as "waking up" from this 5 month-long dream. My mind was blown countless times and I really cannot express how lucky and blessed I was to be given this opportunity.

USAC haha

I feel like I can keep writing about this forever because of how strongly it impacted me. I have so much more self-confidence in everything that I do, knowing that I was able to do the things that I did abroad, whether it was traveling alone, meeting new people, finding a hostel, anything. I view the world, and life in general, in a totally different way now, and it's for the better. Yea, I could have easily done another 4 months of this, but great things can't last forever, and I think that's what keeps us from taking experiences like this for granted. But it wasn't all about traveling. Just making a living in Torino, living, in Italy. Somewhere completely different, mysterious, unexplored by me, and being able to live there for 5 months, not even knowing the language at all, and picking up enough of it to get by. These are some of the things that give me the most confidence in myself and remind me every single day of my life that I can do anything that I want to do. This is probably the most valuable and important lesson I learned in my entire life. If I want something, I know that I can get it if I work hard enough.

Ivrea!

It might sound cliché, but it's true (which is also a cliché, but oh well). The people that I met abroad were some of the nicest people I have ever met. I will be friends with these people for the rest of my life and I look forward to them visiting me and me going back, visiting them. I would love to go back as soon as I graduate, I definitely already miss it, and its hard not to, being that I'm in real life again haha. But anyways, this has been the greatest time of my entire life, this was the greatest decision I made in my enitre life, and I will forever benefit from this experience. I recommend studying abroad more than anything in college. If you were to do one thing while in college, study abroad. There's endless benefits, endless lessons learned, and you will have the greatest time in your life. I cannot thank my family enough for helping me on this trip. Theres too much to say about that. But thanks to USAC, Italy, Europe, and all of the people that I met and will continue to be friends with, for the best time ever.

Ciao!

England

Hello!

So to top off my 3 week journey of post-school traveling, I took a trip from Sweden to England to visit my other friend Jon. This part of the trip strated out very interesting haha. Jon and I made the mistake of not really setting up a prearranged meeting time or place for when I got into Leeds, the closest city to his town, so when I got there I wasn't too sure of where he was going to be. I knew that there was a good chance that I would have to get on a computer somewhere, because the day before I had sent him a facebook message mentioning that I was on my way to England. I really had no idea where he was and I thought that I could just call his phone since for some reason I thought he was using the same one he has in America (he goes to UNR with me but lives in England during summer). Well, unfortunately he was not using that phone and after walking to a nearby hotel to check my facebook, I found a reply to the message saying that his parents were moving into a new house and they were basically refurnishing the whole place, so they were living in a trailer park temporarily until the new place was liveable. In this new park Jon had no cell phone reception or internet access so there was basically no way to communicate with him.

Fountains Abbey

Shortly after that I was checking hotel rates for the night after I sent him a message giving my number to call me when he gets somewhere with reception. Right after the receptionist at a nearby hotel swipes my credit card, Jon calls me. He wanted to confirm with me that I would be in England "tomorrow at 8pm." After I told him that I was already in England ready to be picked up, he was pleasantly surprised and told me he would pick me up in about an hour and a half. I got the hotel to reverse the recent transaction made for a room, and finally ended up meeting with Jon that night haha. It was a bit of a crazy start but thanks to his good timing, things ended up working out. So we got settled into the little trailer and retired for the night. The next day, Jon showed me a bit of the town that his family was moving into, Markington, as well as the larger town nearby that he used to live in, Harrogate. We walked around Harrogate for a bit which was really cool. England has a bit of a different feel to it than the rest of Europe. It's hard to say exactly what it is that makes it feel different, it could be the history, the architecture, the people, the language, I'm not sure, but it was cool to feel somewhere different even though I was still in Europe. After that, Jon took me to this really cool place called Fountains Abbey. It's basically a large park area with these really neat ruins laid out all over that were part of an old abbey run by the monks. These ruins were one of the few that survived the ruling of King Henry VIII who set out to destroy these abbeys. The whole park was really nice and the ruins were awesome to walk around and check out. It's also where Jon graduated from high school, which was definitely the coolest place I have seen to hold a graduation ceremony.

Brimham Rocks

After walking around there for awhile, we made our way to Brimham Rocks, which is an awesome place with these really random and odd looking rocks situated on a hill. They were easily climbable and we got some pretty awesome views of the nearby hills and the landscape from those rocks. I was able to see how green and relatively flat this part of the country was, and it was crazy to see all of the farmland everywhere, I was once again in the countryside, and I couldn't complain. After exploring here for a bit we then headed back to the trailer and helped out a bit with the new house. This was pretty much it for our day and the next day we decided to take a trip to Whitby, a town situated on the Northeast coast of England. This was an awesome town sitting right on the coast and you can tell its definitely a popular tourist destination. When we got there we walked around town for a bit and then headed up on a hill where there was another abbey as well as a cemetary with these really big, old fashioned looking gravestones. It was really eerie and cool at the same time. It definitely looked like something out of a horror movie. We then walked back down and onto the beach. The weather wasn't too bad when we were there (surprisingly) and the water was actually warmer than I thought. We didn't go swimming but it wasn't to cold when I felt the water. It was really neat, and after Whitby we did a bit more exploring in the car and found a place off the beaten path just South of Whitby called Boggle Hole (we got a good laugh out of it). This was a pretty small place with even a youth hostel and we hopped on a path that went by some sheep herds and back down to the coast. It was pretty neat and, again, we got a laugh out of being in a place called Boggle Hole. From there, we headed back to Markington as Tom Tom (the GPS device) led us through the most windy roads I have probably ever been on and it took us quite awhile to finally get to the highway (thanks a lot Tom Tom).

Whitby

But before we stayed on the highway, we stopped by Goathland, home of the Hogwarts train station as seen in the Harry Potter films, which was pretty cool. We then got home and spent the rest of the day getting ready for that following day, where we would head South to Jons grandmothers' house in Peterborough. That day, we had a decision to make before going to Peterborough, we could go to Stamford, where all Jon remembers is some market to see and not much else, or we could go to Cambridge, home of the prestigious university which Jon has never been to. So, we made a decision to go to Cambridge. I was happy with this decision. We both were. Cambridge was a really neat town, a lot of awesome architecture and the university was really cool to see. I'll admit, that town had more beautiful women there than any one place I had ever seen. Not sure how, or why, but it did, and I was okay with that. We both were. We really just chilled at Cambridge for most of the day, and headed to Peterborough (45min away) where Jons grandma lives and we stayed the night there. We got up early the next day because I knew this would be the beginning of a really long one. I had to catch an early train to London and then stay the night in the Stansted airport so I can catch my early flight back to Torino the next day, so Jon gave me a ride to the train station and we said our farewells until he got back to Reno (he couldn't come to London because of work). While waiting for my train, I had some extra time to walk around Peterborough and I was pretty impressed by the downtown area there. I got the chance to see the main cathedral there and it was huge. A really cool site to see and I'm glad I had that extra time. When I got into London it was crazy. There were so many people everywhere. The first place I went to was the tourist information office at the underground station. Because when I got there, I knew about some of the main sites like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben and stuff like that, but that was about it.

So the tourist information person there was really helpful and marked a route for me to follow on a map to see all of the main sites. From then on, I was on my way around London for the day. At first the underground system was a bit intimidating, but like all underground systems, at least in Europe, you get the hang of it relatively quickly. The first place I went to was Buckingham Palace. It was really awesome because it turned out that when I got there, it was the changing of the guard and that was really cool to see, although there were a ton of people there. They had the classic looking guards dressed in red with the funny looking hats and they had them in formations marching out of the gates of the Palace as they played trumpets and things of that nature. It was neat to see that and after walking around the palace area for a bit, I headed over to the parliament building to also see Big Ben. When I got there I was pretty amazed at the architecture of the building. It was highly detailed and I believe it was of the Gothic style, which I think is definitely my favorite style of architecture, very elaborate. Shortly after that I checked out the London Eye and proceeded to conitnue walking around the city. I saw a lot (even a statue of Abraham Lincoln!). I also got the opportunity to walk around the London School of Economics which was pretty neat for me (since I'm an economics major). I could feel the knowledge around me and shortly after, I was intimidated by the geniuses I saw there and I continued my walk around the city. I also walked across the famous London Bridge (which isn't that great, but I'm sure there's a good story behind it).

Big Ben and the London Eye

The Tower Bridge was pretty cool, and I was able to see that from the London Bridge. I also made an attempt to visit Wimbledon, since it was possible to take the Underground there, and when I got there, I noticed that my ticket does not cover this outer zone of London and I was unable to exit the station, but I at least saw the tennis stadium from the window of the train which was good enough for me haha. Other than that, I chilled for a bit at the park near Buckingham Palace and did some more walking before catching my shuttle to the Stansted Airport and spending a very uneventful night there. I then hopped on my plane back to Torino to conclude my absolutely incredible 3 week post-school trip which honestly felt like a completely separate trip from my study abroad experience. I think this trip really gave me a different perspective on Europe and myself as a whole. I accomplished so much on just this 3 week trip I even amazed myself. After traveling mostly by myself on this trip to get where I needed to go and meet up with my friends, I really developed more confidence with myself in not just being able to travel, but I think in my life in general. That's pretty much it for my England trip/3 week post-program experience. Back to Torino!

Cheers!

Sweden

Hej!

After my travels in Berlin, I got the opportunity to visit a friend of mine up in Sweden! This was a pretty special trip, mainly because I am Swedish and I have always wanted to venture to the land where my family is from (at least my Moms side of the family). It was also really cool to finally visit my friend here. I was pretty excited, and when I finally got there, my friend and his parents were waiting for me at the Gothenburg airport.

The Falkenberg Cathedral

It was awesome to meet them, and after that we drove into the city of Gothenburg to check it out. It was pretty cold/windy so not the ideal conditions to walk around the city but we managed. They live about 1 hour South of Gothenburg in the countryside on a farm so they weren't extremely familiar with the city of Gothenburg (the second largest city in Sweden, next to Stockholm, only Gothenburg is on the west coast of Sweden) so it was a bit of an exploration for all of us, which was cool. It was a pretty cool city, there were a lot of ports because its right on the water, and there are a ton of little islands. We had a really nice lunch there and after walking around a bit more, we got in the car and headed to a popular island destination during the summer. This was really neat, because to get to the island, you drive the car onto a ferry that's run by an underwater cable, so you drive on the ferry, stop the car, stay in the car, and then you begin to move forward on the ferry. It was kind of crazy and it felt a little weird to be moving in the car without it even being turned on and it was on a level surface haha. But the island wasn't extremely crowded during this time of year, especially since it started to drizzle now in the cold wind. But we got to see a cool ship/fishing museum when we got there which had a lot of really neat old shipping stuff and it was full of history. After checking out the museum we made our way to their home about an hour South in the countryside. They live in the small city of Falkenberg, which has about 40,000 people. They live a little on the outskirts on the city since they're on a farm. But they live in a pretty nice little Swedish house, and when we got there I met the rest of Filip's (my friend) family; his brother, his super crazy dog Ikoros (don't know if that's spelled correctly) and his brothers' friend who is there most of the time, Thomas. They were super nice and really cool people and it was so cool to be living with a Swedish family for a few days! I was excited and when we got there we had pizza kebab, which was pretty awesome, and I could not believe that they had it in Sweden haha. After that, we pretty much just got comfortable at the house and I got settled into my own room that they had for me which was pretty cool. The whole time I was there it was great.

They fed me a huge amount and even did my laundry since I had pretty much dirtied up all of my clothes up to this point after Greece and Berlin. I really just hung out with Swedish people the entire time and got to experience their culture first hand. It's definitely different there compared to Italy. Everything is much more fast-paced and things are much more expensive since they have such a good healthcare system. We did a lot of stuff when I was there. Some of the highlights were when I was able to attend some of Filips' classes since he was still in school at the time. His classes were much more relaxed than America and they were a lot smaller too. I got the opportunity to go to one of his English classes and answer questions about America to some of the students. They were pretty shy at first but then I spent the last 20 minutes of his class explaining the American school system to them. It was really cool to get an outside perspective of America from their point of view and to explain to them how different America is compared to Sweden. I also got the chance to meet some of Filips' friends and they were really nice. They were really interested in meeting me and asked me a lot of questions about America. I got to hang out with them a good amount which was pretty awesome. Filip also showed me around his town which was really cool.

Coolest Calzone Ever

It's a pretty old town and there is some really cool architecture there, especially the main church which was nice. After that, I had the chance to learn how to drive stick, since Filip had a car that was manual, he decided to let me try and learn it since I have never driven a stick shift before. I must say that this was a bit of a learning experience. I stalled the car a good 100 times and it got pretty embarrassing. Eventually near the end I started to get the hang of it, but I guess I can say that's where I learned how to drive stick shift, Sweden, haha. We also got a chance to go to the beach while we were there but it was FREEZING. The combination of cold air and wind made the weather extra cold and when I saw people going into that water I could not believe what I was seeing. One day, while Filip was in his classes, me and his brother, Emil, went out to a pretty awesome fort outside of the city. This place was really awesome. There were old cannons lined up against the walls of the fort and you can feel all of the history around it. It was really neat to see that place. Also, all of the food that I had in Sweden was really good. The kebabs were really good, the pizza kebabs were really good and even the cheeseburgers were really good there too. One of the last days I was there, me and Filip and his friends all went to this pretty neat skateboarding competition about an hour and a half away and it was pretty awesome. His friends are really into skating and there were a lot of really good skaters there, most of them were pros. It was really neat to see a skateboarding comp in Sweden and I never thought I would have the opportunity to see that.

The House

That night we decided to go out to a club. We went to a party the night before at one of Filips' friends houses and that was pretty fun too. The club was pretty nice there, and although the one that they originally wanted to go to was closed that night, we were able to go to a pretty nice one. It was cool to chill with his friends there and see what some of the club life was like, and after that, we headed back to Filips' house and the next day it was apparently Mothers day for Sweden so we had a really nice lunch at Filips grandma's house and then it was time for me to head to England to see my friend Jon. They gave me a ride back to the Gothenburg airport after having some delicious Swedish meatballs and I was on my way. Overall, this trip was incredibly awesome. I was able to experience firsthand the Swedish culture and Filips family took really good care of me. They were really generous and made sure that my time there was a great one, and I thanked them very much for that. By the way, Filips dog, Ikoros, is the craziest animal I have ever seen. He's probably over five feet tall and he's only about two years old so he acts exactly like a puppy and he has sooooo much energy it blew me away. We had a few good fights and he was always up for a good fight whenever I saw him. He was really fun to play with and that made my trip even better. This was definitely one of my best trips that I took (I think I say that for every trip) and I will definitely never forget my time in Sweden. Next stop, England!

Hej då!

Berlin

Guten Tag!

After spending an amazing week in Greece, I had the opportunity to see Berlin for a couple of days! I was really interested to see another country and how different Germany was going to be. To be honest, I had no idea what to do when I first got to Berlin haha. I knew about the Berlin Wall and there is plenty of history in the city, most notably from WWII, but I did not know any of the famous sites to see or where to really go. So the first thing I did when I got to Berlin was get a city map. On this city map there was an advertisement for free walking tours around the city that saw all of the important sites so I knew that I had to check this out. I came in later in the night so after getting the map I had to find my way to my hostel which was definitely nowhere near the airport haha. I got on a train and I honestly had no idea what stop I had to get off of to get to my hostel so I got off at the only part of the city that I had heard of before, Alexanderplatz (I really don't know how I even heard of this place, but I knew that it was near the center of the city).

The Victory Column

Once I got off at this station, I began to attempt and decipher the metro system of Berlin, (which I became pretty good at actually) although at this time I had no idea what train to get on or where to go. So I began to make sense of the metro layout on my city map and I finally found a train that could take me closer to my hostel. When I got off at the nearest stop it was about a 20 minute walk or so through some darker streets in the city. At this point I actually started to feel a bit nervous, probably one of the more nervous times I've been abroad, just because I was by myself and it was around midnight in the outer streets of Berlin. But it was fine and I ended up finally finding my hostel. The hostel was really nice and there were a lot of people there so that was cool. The next day I tried to meet up with the tour and when I got to the meeting spot, nobody was there, so there wasn't much else for me to do other than go back to the hostel and ask them for suggestions haha. They pointed out a few cool sites like the Tiergarten and a spot in the city where remains from the Berlin Wall were supposed to be. So when I got to the Tiergarten it was really nice. It's just a huge park area thats super nice on a good day and it was cool to walk through. After that I went to where I thought was supposed to be the remains of the Berlin Wall but instead it was like this massive gathering of people and they were all just hanging out in this massive park area and I kept asking myself where the remains of this Berlin Wall were. I actually did not end up finding it there and I spent the rest of the day walking around the city and trying some pretty awesome kebab and beer (part of the reason why I came to Berlin). That pretty much consisted of my first day in Berlin and although I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to it was still pretty cool to just walk around wherever I wanted and relax.

The Berliner Dom and The Fernsehturm

The next day was definitely more eventful haha. I woke up earlier and when I went to the spot where this free walking tour was supposed to start (hoping to catch it this time) I noticed some other people walking around the area too. They were standing in the spot looking really confused and when I walked up to the group they thought that I was the tour guide haha. When I told them that I wasn't (afraid of what would happen if I pretended that I was) we heard someone point out to where the group was supposed to meet. So we were finally able to meet with our guide and from there we went to the main meeting area on the other side of the city where the tour actually started. It's hard to talk about everything that we saw but I can say that the tour was definitely awesome. It was so informational and interesting and the tour guide was a really cool guy. We saw all of the main sites that Berlin had to offer and we got a nice bit of history and explanation as to what each site was about. It was really neat and, of course, there was a lot of Nazi and Communist history here. Some of the things we saw just blew me away. To think I was standing right where Hitler assembled his Nazi Army and conducted all of his horrible tactics was pretty crazy. The tour lasted about 3 and a half hours and after it, the guide recommended a few places for me to go (including a good kebab spot of course).

One of my favorite paintings on the East Side Gallery

So I went to see some of these places and the first place I saw was the East Side Gallery. This was really neat. It is basically the largest open air gallery in the world, consisting of around 100 paintings along the side of the Berlin Wall and it is really cool. There is a ton of really cool artwork that each represents some kind of message. I really enjoyed my time looking at this gallery. After seeing this I went to check out an exhibit called the Topography of Terror which basically documents the history of Berlin and Germany during Hitler's reign. It was really interesting and there was a lot of information here, as well as another section of the Berlin Wall that was still standing. After seeing this exhibit I went to check out the Berlin Wall Memorial in the North side of town. This was definitely an emotional memorial. It basically contained a standing exhibit of how the wall was set up. There was an inner wall and an outer wall with a space in between the two called the "death strip." In this area now there is a memorial for the people who died trying to get across this strip and over the wall into West Berlin where freedom existed. There were many people here that died trying to cross the strip, as there were numerous booby traps and watchtowers with guards who were authorized to shoot at anyone attempting to cross the strip and climb the wall.

The Death Strip

It was pretty mind-blowing to stand there in the area of the death strip and think to myself "wow, if i had been standing here 22 years ago I would have definitely been dead." So after that more depressing and heavy part of the city, I basically just headed back to the hostel and had an early night since I had a fairly early flight the next day to Sweden, and after an early wake up due to my first bad hostel experience, (a man in my dorm was yelling in his sleep) I was ready to start the day early and head to the airport (which I barely made it to because of a fire on the train tracks for the first scheduled train) and I was on my way to Sweden! Overall, Berlin was a pretty awesome city. There is a ton of interesting history and nearly all of the main buildings were pretty much rebuilt because of all of the bombing that took place during the war. There is a lot of intense history here and it makes you think about things, but it's good. It was cool to experience the different parts of the city and I definitely learned a lot of stuff about the war that I didn't know before when I was here. I would certainly recommend making a trip here. Next stop Sweden!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Greece

Hello Again!

So I know it has definitely been awhile since my last entry. This is mostly due to the fact that I am know updating the trips that I took after my study abroad program had ended and I did about 3 weeks of traveling around Europe! Greece was my first stop on this trip, and because I had limited internet access during this 3 week trip, I am now updating these travels after I have returned back to the states. So, after school had ended, I had one last weekend in Torino which was a lot of fun. The highlight of this weekend was probably when nearly everyone in our study abroad group went out to the best club in Torino, Cacau, and we all had one last party together. It was so much fun and it was great to party with everyone for one last time before we all went our separate ways. It was really strange, because these were the people that I hung out with the most during the time I had been abroad, and now all of a sudden, they were leaving. It was crazy. So after this last weekend, I ended up flying from Milan to Athens to begin my new journey. To be honest, I was pretty sad once the plane took off, knowing that I was going to be away from Italy for about 3 weeks, not even wanting to know how it's going to feel when I go back to the states. When I got to Athens I quickly took the metro into the city, and met up with my buddy, Max. I spent pretty much the whole week in Greece with Max and he got there a couple days before me so he gave me a brief description of his time in the city so far, which I must say was unfortunately depressing. He had some interesting stories about his time in Athens so far, and to be honest, the city was pretty depressing. Outside the amazing Acropolis and a few other touristy sections of the city, it was pretty run down. I have never seen so much graffiti in my life. There were also a large amount of beggars and even children playing accordians begging for money.

The coolest thing we saw in the city that day was the first thing we saw, the changing of the guard in front of "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" at a parliament building. They were donig the most bizzare marching and put on a really interesting show. I got a picture with one and you'll be able to see that they wore some pretty elaborate clothing.  I was not extremely impressed by Athens my first day there, but fortunately the rest of the trip made up for it. We spent a few hours in Athens before making a last minute decision to get on a ferry to Santorini, One of the more famous and popular islands in the Cyclades. So we hopped on the ferry and we were on our way to Santorini. It was a REALLY nice ferry haha and it was about a 5 and a half hour trip to get there. It was pretty nice actually and I enjoyed the ride there. When we finally got to the island it was probably around midnight and we were bombarded by people with hostels who wanted us to book a room with them. This being a last minute decision to come here, we quickly found a deal in the biggest city on the island, Thira. We got a ride there and I was very impressed with the room situation. Since it was still low season, the islands really weren't that crowded so it was pretty nice and we got our own room. We then went out to the town that night to see if there was any night life but it was pretty much dead. The next day, we decided to rent atv's, and we negotiated a decent price to keep them overnight until the next morning. So we spent the entire next day, riding around the island and seeing all of the incredible sights that Santorini had to offer. I was truly blown away to say the least, and this really marked the beginning of my time in the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my entire life, the Cyclades. It's really difficult to describe all of the places we went to on these atv's and how amazing each place was, but I can say that we went all around the island on these things and it was so much fun. That evening, we went to Oia, where there is supposedly one of the best sunsets in the world, so I guess we had to go see it. We got there in the evening and walked around the town for a bit. This was probably my favorite place on the whole island and when that sun came down, it was incredible. The way the light would reflect off of the stacked, blue topped structures, was like a dream, just as the sun came down beneath the middle of two erected mountains on a nearby island. It was insane, and I could not believe that I got the chance to see that.

We rode the atv's back to the hostel that night, which was one of the coolest things I have ever done. Cruising around the cliff side turns on the rode underneath a full moon seeing the outlined ridge of a nearby mountain under the glow was absolutely incredible, and followed up the world famous sunset quite well. It was a great ending to an awesome day, and the next day we took the atv's out for one last ride and turned them in. We then had to figure out what we were going to do next and where we were going to go, since this whole trip had no plans and everything we did was improvised (which in my opinion is the best way to have a trip). So our last minute decision was to go to Ios, a smaller island about 20 miles north of Santorini. So we hopped on a ferry and got to Ios. We were tracked down again by someone with a hostel/bed and breakfast, got a good deal, and stayed at a really nice place with our own room and bathroom again. Ios is smaller and only has one small town. We were able to check that out pretty quickly which was really cool. We then went down to the main beach (1 of 45 beaches apparently) and we met a pretty cool guy who was living in Switzerland and was staying in Ios for 11 days, saying it is the "party island" of the Cyclades. We did not know this, thinking Mykonos was the "party island" of the Cyclades and which was too expensive to go to since we of course looked that one up already. But apparently the greeks come to Ios to party so it must be pretty good. Anyways, we hung out with him for a bit and pretty much relaxed until the evening came and we went to check out the nightlife.

So we went to the "Fun Bar" first which was cool and pretty layed back and then we went to the heart of the town where all of the bars and clubs were. Since the island is pretty small, so are the bars and clubs, but there sure are a good amount of them in that small area. We went to a place called "Flames" which was pretty cool, but it was really the only place with people dancing and partying, and since it was low season there wasn't much going on other than the party at this place. So we were there for a bit, and it was pretty fun but there wasn't much else to do after that so we just returned to our hostel and got ready for one of the best days of my trip so far that next day. The next day, we decided to rent atv's here as well, since they are the best, and most fun way to get around the islands. Once we got the atv's we decided to ride north of the island, where supposedly Homer's tomb was located, with breathtaking views of the islands along the way. It was so cool to ride around the island and when we got to the tomb, I really could not believe that I was there. It was pretty incredible, but there it was, the famous poet's tomb, crazy. After that we proceeded to ride around the rest of the island, stopping at a few beaches that pretty much had nobody there because of the low season. One of my favorite places during the ride on this island was a tiny group of old ruins and buildings called Paleokastro. This place sat at the end of a really cool pathway on the point of this cliff with an insane view of the islands and the sea. I think this place, and this view, and this overall moment was where things finally started to sink in. It blew me away more than anything. I don't think I have ever felt so amazed in my life, and to be honest, it was hard to say anything. It was incredible. After that we saw a couple more beaches and then we booked it back to the rental place on time and before we ran out of gas haha.

We went as fast as those little 50cc quads could go and fortunately we made it. After we returned them we got some dinner (gyros of course, which are similar to kebab) and I was pretty tired so I decided to go to sleep. Max still wanted to go out so he did for a while and then we both woke up for the next day of our time in the islands. The next day was quite rainy and we had to get back to Athens so Max could catch his flight out and I had plans to see the Acropolis. So we decided to catch a later ferry waiting in the cold rain as we had already checked out of our hostel. When the ferry came we were ready to head back to Athens. By the way, Ios was a great island but that town was insanely small! Every time we walked through it we saw the exact same people in the same places hanging out! It was kind of strange, and I don't know if I could have spent 11 days there like the guy we met there did, but it sure was an incredible place to see. So we ended up taking the ferry back to Athens and when we got there we settled into our hostel and we went out to check out the nightlife for a bit. We briefly went into a club where a lot of students studying abroad there were partying but I was way too tired to go out that night. The next day Max had to wake up pretty early to go to Paris so he took off and I had the day to myself as my flight to Berlin wasn't until the following day. So I decided to spend my day visiting the Acropolis and seeing what other sites Athens had to offer. I saw a lot of stuff this day, first, the Acropolis was pretty incredible. It offered views of the entire city and the to see the Parthenon was also amazing. After visiting the Acropolis museum shortly after, it really was incredible to learn about how much that structure has really been through, after all, it was constructed in 438 BC! After checking that out for awhile I walked around the Agora which is basically the Roman Forum of Athens.

There were a lot of ruins in this area and in a way I think it did remind me of Rome. After that I checked out the Panathinaiko stadium in Athens and it was pretty huge. It was used in 1896 when  it hosted the first modern Olympic Games. It was really neat to see that. After that I spent the rest of my evening walking around the central part of the city. It was really nice just to walk around and listen to the live Greek music playing in some of the restaurants. Also, when I went to sit down and have dinner, I noticed that there were hundreds of people getting on bikes for what looked like some kind of race or something. It was pretty late for a race and I asked what was going on and I guess every Friday night people gather in this part of the city to just ride bikes everywhere. It seemed a little strange but I thought it was pretty cool. After walking around a bit more I headed back to my hostel and got ready for my last day in Athens. My flight to Berlin was in the evening so I was still able to spend a bit more time in Athens. I spent most of the time checking out where they had the more recent 2004 Summer Olympic Games. This was a much bigger complex than the older stadium and the stadium for these Olympic Games was quite impressive. It was a little surprising to see how deserted it was at the time I visited there but I'm they still use the main stadium for some events. The Olympic pool still looked like it was being used so it was cool to see that. After checking out these last sites in Athens I headed back on the metro to the airport and basically just hung out there until it was ready for me to take my next part of my trip to Berlin! At the end of this trip, I realized just how awesome of a place Greece was. There are so many incredible things to see, and although Athens wasn't the nicest place to be, especially outside the touristy areas, it still had a lot to offer and the islands were absolutely incredible. I highly recommend going there as I would with pretty much anywhere I have gone so far and this was definitely a trip I will never forget. So until Berlin...

Ciao!

Rome

Buongiorno!

So amidst all of the traveling I have been doing lately, I am happy to update my last trip for a short while, and what better way to do it with Rome for the Easter weekend! This was an awesome weekend and a very very busy one as well. I knew Rome obviously had a lot of sites to see, being the phenomenal ancient city that it is, but man were there a lot of sites! You really don't realize how much there truly is to see in this city until you get there and spend a weekend walking all day each day going to different sites. My roommates and I started our trip at the beginning of the slightly longer Easter weekend on Thursday. We took a short flight to Rome and took a shuttle into the city where I was first exposed to some of the sites of the city.

The Colosseum

Once we got into the city, our first objective was to locate our hostel. It took awhile but we eventually found it and it was only a short 10 minute walk to the Colosseum! So after we got there, we dropped off our stuff and made our way to the famous Roman Colosseum. It was later in the evening when we got there so we didn't get to go inside of it yet but it was nice to hang out around it while it was lit up. That day was actually Rome's 2,764th birthday so we thought there may be some events going on at night, but for the most part it was pretty quiet. After seeing the Colosseum, which was truly incredible and I couldn't believe I was there, we made our way back to the hostel to get some rest for the long day ahead of us in the morning. For this next day, we had planned to see the Ancient City of Rome as well as a  lot of the other sites in the center of the city. So we got up early and the first thing we went to get was the Roma Pass. This pass is an awesome deal and it allowed us to skip the line for the first two sites we saw and we got to use it for all of the public transportation in Rome for only 25 euros! So once we got the pass we immediately headed to the Colosseum to skip the line and go inside. Once we got inside I really could not believe how large the Colosseum was. It looks pretty large from the outside, but from the inside you can tell just how massive it really is, especially for the time it was used, it was truly an architectural feat. We spent a lot of time in the Colosseum and got plenty of pictures before heading off to the Roman Forum.

A view of the Forum and the Colosseum.

For those who do not know what the Roman Forum is, it is basically a very condensed area of a ton of old Roman ruins lined up along the oldest street in Rome, via Sacra. So we skipped the line for this as well and headed into the area. It was really neat to see so many ancient Roman ruins in one area and the age of the city really stands out here. After walking for a bit through all of these ruins, we made our way up to Palatine Hill, where we were able to get an amazing view of the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and Capitoline Hill. It was really cool to be able to see this whole landscape, and on the other side of the hill we were able to see the very few remains of the massive Circus Maximus arena, where they held many of the chariot races. From Palatine Hill, we went off in search of a pizza place for lunch that we had heard was incredible.It took us a bit of time to locate the pizza place, as it was fairly small, off of a small street in the area of Trastevere. The name of the pizza place is Dar Poeta, and I can say that I had probably the best pizza of my entire life. It was a pizza with pesto, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes and the ingredients were so fresh and it was incredible. Once we finished enjoying our pizza, we went to Piazza Navona, which is a pretty large, really nice piazza, and then we went to the Pantheon. When we got there it was packed and there was a mass going on inside that everyone was trying to see. We decided that we would head there later and we then went to the Trevi Fountain. As soon as I saw the fountain I was very impressed.

The Trevi Fountain

The fountain really is quite large and the sculptures are really neat. It is a very elaborate fountain and I thought it was one of my favorite sites in Rome. We threw some coins in the fountain, and we then went to the Spanish Steps. It was quite crowded when we got there, and we headed up the steps and into the Trinità dei Monti church at the top which was nice. We got a really good view of the city, and just like most other views we had, we were able to see the massive St. Peter's Basilica looming in the distance. From there, we headed down a road to Piazza del Popolo, which is another really neat piazza in the northern part of the city. After hanging out in the piazza for a bit, we took the metro back to the area of the ancient city, where we checked out the massive monument of Vittorio Emanuele II which was extremely impressive and this was also one of my favorite sites to see in Rome. After checking out this massive monument, we started to head back to the hostel when we noticed that they were closing the entire street near the Colosseum and people were gathering all along the street for some kind of event. After asking a couple of people, I was told that there was going to be a special ceremony when the Pope was going to make an appearance down the street in his "Popemobile." Unfortunately, it wasn't for another 2 hours and people were already crowding the area. We were not able to wait that long because we were quite hungry and we had to catch the free pasta the hostel offered that evening. So we got back to the hostel and had some really good dinner. After dinner, we pretty much just hung out with some of the other people at the hostel which was fun. We then went to sleep so we can wake up early to head to the Vatican the next day. Once we got ready the next morning, we made our way to the Vatican and went over to the Vatican Museums, as those usually have the longest line to get in. Even at 9 in the morning the line was already pretty long, and we had to wait for maybe an hour to get in, knowing it was going to be worse later on.

One of the corridors leading to the Sistine Chapel.

We got in and headed to the Sistine Chapel. It took a bit of walking to get to the chapel but the walk to the chapel was pretty neat. We went through a number of corridors that were very elaborately decorated and were lined with numerous sculptures and paintings. When we finally got to the Sistine Chapel I was pretty impressed. The artwork was very nice and we hung out in the chapel for a bit and started going to a couple other parts of the museums. There were a couple of little parks we went through that had some pretty cool works of art and then we went to a sculpture museum with a ton of really neat, elaborate sculptures of a ton of different stuff. I really enjoyed this part of the museum and I thought it was really cool to see all the different types of sculptures that were contained here. After checking that out, we exited the museum and headed to St. Peter's square in hopes of entering the Basilica. When we got to the square, I was totally blown away at how large the church was and it was a really amazing setup. However, I had never seen a line so long going into the Basilica. The line literally went around the entire square (which is huge) and it was probably at least three hours long. I think this was mostly due to the holiday weekend, and, because they were closing the Basilica in three hours to prepare for an evening vigil, we decided that it would be best to not get in the extremely long line. It was still really neat to just hang out in the square and relax in the Vatican City, I couldn't complain haha. After hanging out for a bit in the Vatican, we headed down the main street there and walked a bit along the Tiber River which was quite scenic. We got some food, and then headed back to the Pantheon to see if we could get inside. When we got to the Pantheon, there was no mass taking place so we were able to go inside. It was HUGE on the inside and I thought it was incredible. The architecture inside the Pantheon is remarkable, and we were also able to see the tomb of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of Italy, which I thought was awesome to see. After spending some time in the Pantheon, we ended up going back to the Vatican because I wanted to go to the post office there and get some

St. Peter's Basilica

Vatican stamps to send a postcard, it was pretty cool to see the little post office there and just outside of that was a pair of Swiss guards dressed in some pretty elaborate uniforms. We watched the changing of the guard which was cool and then we ended up seeing if there was any way to go into the rest of the city, Since St. Peter's is really near the front entrance to the city. However, after asking one of the Swiss guards, we found out that the rest of the city is private, and it is not open to the public. It was still cool to walk around a bit of the city, and when we got done with that, we headed back towards the ancient part of Rome to check out the Bocca della Verità. Legend has it that if you stick your hand in the mouth of this sculpture, it would be bitten off if you were a liar. This is a popular tourist attraction and when we got there, it was unfortunately closed. We then headed back to the hostel after that and got some dinner. After dinner, Mike and I wanted to check out some of the nightlife in the city. We didn't end up leaving the hostel until a little late that night, but we found a pub in a part of the city that we hung out at for a bit. After that, there wasn't much else to do and we basically made our way back to the hostel to get ready for our last half-day in Rome. When we got up the next day, Felix and our buddy Nick went to mass, and Mike and I went to the Trevi Fountain one more time so that he could throw a coin in the fountain. After going to the fountain again, we decided to go to the Vatican again, since it was Easter day. When we got there, there were a TON of people on the way there and when we actually got to the main square, I was able to hear an older man's voice on the loudspeakers. The entire square was packed with people and I don't know if I've ever seen that many people in one area before. After the man was finished talking, everybody was clapping and then people began to exit the square. After I heard that, I was pretty sure that it was the Pope, although I wasn't certain, since it was difficult to see him from where we were.

The Swiss Guards

Once people began to leave, me and Mike were able to get into the square and we realized that the Easter mass had just ended. I don't think we would have been able to make it to the actual mass if we had gotten there earlier though because I think we needed a special ticket to get into the city for the mass, which is free, but you need to book a year in advance! But it was still cool to see a bunch of people from different countries waving their flags and the overall atmosphere of the city on Easter was really nice. We hung out again for a bit in the square and then headed back to the hostel to get ready to head back to Torino. Before we made our way out of the city, we checked out one last church, one of the four main churches in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore. This was a very impressive church and it is probably one of the nicest churches I have been to so far. After checking out the church, we headed back to the shuttle, and two shuttles and a flight later, we were back in Torino. This was an extremely busy trip, as we saw a lot of sites in this incredible city. Although it was quite exhausting, I was really happy with the city and I was just amazed at how much there was to see. Although I wish we could have gone into St. Peter's Basilica, which I have heard is amazing, I guess you simply cannot do everything in Rome in 3 days. This was a really awesome trip, but I gotta say that I am pretty traveled out at the moment, since I have been doing so much of it lately. I only spent one full day in Torino this week! So I am definitely excited to stay in Torino for probably the next two weeks before my program is over! That's about it for Rome.

 Ciao!

Cinque Terre/Brussels

Ciao a Tutti!

So this past weekend has been an extremely busy one. I took a trip to Cinque Terre over the weekend and the day after I got back I left for Brussels to visit the European Union Parliament with my economics class! It was really excited but VERY busy and definitely exhausting, but I can say these two trips were well worth it. Starting on Friday, I was getting ready for my trip to Cinque Terre.

Manarola

For those who do not know, Cinque Terre is an absolutely beautiful and incredible place along the Ligurian coast, just South of Torino. In English, Cinque Terre translates to "5 towns," and these are five towns literally built along a series of cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. You could either hike along a coastal trail between them, or you can hike up along the higher cliffs looking down on the towns through all 5 areas. You can also take a train, which is the fastest way to get between the towns. The total hike is about 5 hours, and it's well worth it. There was a large group of us that decided to go this weekend, so we decided to catch a really early train on Saturday morning at 5:20am so that we could get in to the first town Monterosso at around 9:30am. Then we would stay the night in a nearby city on Saturday night and leave Sunday evening at around 6pm back to Torino. The beginning of this trip started off a little slow after me and my roommate, Mike, missed the 5:20am train and got on the wrong train headed towards the coast, but near France! haha. So as soon as we found out, we were able to turn in the other direction, and about 5 trains and hours later we finally made it to the second city of Cinque Terre (Vernazza) and we met up with the others. It was quite an adventure at the beginning, but we made it there and after meeting up with everyone else, we walked around the town for a bit and then took a train to the city of La Spezia, where our hostel was nearby. We got into La Spezia, went around the city, and then took a bus a little ways into the hills and barely found our hostel. The hostel was really nice and was more like a bed and breakfast. I really liked it and it was in a nice small town in the hills of the Ligurian coast. We got some sleep and the next day, we headed back to Cinque Terre and began our hike. We took a train to the 5th town, Riomaggiore, and took a coastal path from there to the fourth town, Manarola. This was an amazing path and we had some beautiful views of the coast from here. It was awesome, and after spending some time in Manarola, we went along the coastal path again, getting some awesome pictures of the town on the way.

Vineyards cut into the hills.

We then discovered that the coastal path from Manarola to the 3rd town, Corniglia, was closed, either from construction or a possible landslide. So after turning around from that, we decided to take the more intense path, up into the cliffs above, to get to Corniglia. This turned out to be quite exhausting, as there appeared to be endless steps, and after over 1000ft. of elevation gain, we made it to the top of the cliffs and had a stunning view of the towns beneath us. Walking along this path was truly incredible, as we were able to see Corniglia below us, and we made our way towards the town. Another amazing thing we saw were the surrounding hills above the towns. The workers from these towns would literally cut into the hills and create rows of vineyards up and down the hills. It created an astonishing view and I had never really seen anything like it before. What's even more amazing was the workers had built a track made from a single steel bar, that would go to the top of the hills, and was used to help them transport the grapes to the bottom of the hills from the vineyards at the top, using a makeshift motor device, with a chair the workers would sit in. Let me tell you, if you are afraid of heights, I would not recommend doing this as I could not believe how the workers used this machine because at some points the track would get extremely steep! Once we got down into Corniglia, we got some amazing mint chocolate gelato, and made our way down a few hundred steps to the base of the cliff where the train station was located. We then took a train from Corniglia to the first town, Monterosso where we basically stayed on the beach until our train came. We then hopped on our train and finally made it back to Torino. This trip was absolutely incredible and I had an awesome time in Cinque Terre, despite the long adventure getting there haha. After we had got back from Cinque Terre, I immediately had to start packing again for my trip to Brussels, Belgium! My economics class had planned an optional trip to Brussels to visit the European Union Parliament. If you aren't familiar with the European Union, I could probably spend a very large amount of time talking about it, although for the sake of the length of this blog I will leave it up to you to look it up haha. Anyways, the next day I was headed off to Brussels in the afternoon and finally arrived there that evening.

When we got there we checked into our hotel and we basically had the rest of the evening free, as we would visit the Parliament the next day and then leave that evening. So myself and the two friends that I booked the hotel with decided to see as much as we could during the short amount of time we had in Brussels. We unpacked and headed to the Grand Place, which is basically the center of Brussels. On our way walking there I was amazed at some of the architecture that Brussels had to offer. There were many palaces and cathedrals in the city and I was blown away when I saw them. When we got to Grand Place it was amazing. There was a huge palace with a bunch of shops all around the area and there were a lot of people out on this Monday night. Once we got some pictures, we set out to get an authentic Belgian waffle and IT WAS AMAZING. I had one topped off with some Belgian chocolate which tasted incredible. After that we then set out to have some Belgian fries which were also incredible. We also had sampled some Belgian chocolate before and it was delicious. After eating the amazing local food, we decided to check out a bar called Delirium, this bar contains over 2500 different types of beer so we had to check it out. It was really cool and I cold not believe how packed it was for a Monday night! It is pretty well known and, like I said, there is a lot of beer there. My buddy Nate had a traditional Belgian cherry beer which tasted absolutely delicious and I had myself a honey flavored beer. They tasted pretty incredible and all three floors of this place had really good music and vibes and we just had a really fun time hanging out there. After seeing Delirium, we made our way back to the hotel and got some sleep. We woke up the next day and made our way to meet the rest of the class at the Parliament. When we got there, I was pretty impressed with the overall size and structure of the building. It was very modern and it looked very impressive.

A waffle truck hahaha.

We met up with the assistant of one of the former Vice Presidents of the European Union and she took us through the building up to a conference room and explained to us some of the basics of how the European Union works. It is a very impressive and somewhat complex institution, but it was really interesting to learn about how it works and how many people are involved in it. After this, we had the opportunity to possibly attend a conference involving the Minister of Finance from Italy as well as the former Vice President of the Parliament. Unfortunately, the conference was full and we were not able to meet the former Vice President, but his assistant did give us a quick tour of the inside of the Parliament and I thought it was very impressive. I was really happy with being able to go inside of the Parliament and seeing what it was really like, since we had learned a lot about it in my class. After that we also got the chance to see the European Commission, which is one of the world's most important and controversial political institutions (you might also want to look this up). That was really neat to see and after that we were able to see the Council of Ministers of the European Union which was also really neat. After seeing these sites, we then made our way back to the airport and made it back to Torino at around midnight. This was yet another really good trip and I wish I could have spent more time in Brussels to see more of the city. I would love to go back and check it out if I ever get the chance again. After these two trips, this week has proven to be probably the busiest so far. As I am only spending one full day in Torino before heading off to Rome this Thursday for Easter weekend! There is a lot of traveling this week but I think I'm going to relax and stay in town the following weekend to give myself a break. But anyways, I should be getting ready for Rome and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Ciao!