So I didn't travel this weekend. In a way, though, I was still very much the tourist. We were scheduled to have a visit to the local TV station, but of course, all forms of transportation went on strike in Rome on Friday so we had the day off. Just another day in Europe- you have to roll with the punches because things don't usually pan out the way I think they will.
On Friday, I enjoyed sleeping in (a luxury here) and then took a walk around Trastevere, the neighborhood I live in. It is the "Lincoln Park" of Rome, and I climbed to the top of the Janiculum Hill and got a great view of Rome from the west. After walking and walking, enjoying the nice weather, I eventually descended again and, oh, what do you know, there's the Vatican City walls. Now I've been to the Vatican before, and every time, it is extremely breathtaking to the point of awe. It's hard to walk down the central nave and not believe, what with the band of gold mosaics, colossal sculptures. Behind the altar, there were pews set up for mass and I checked my watch. 4:55 p.m. I knew that every day after 5 p.m, they have mass in Latin, so I sat by a pew and watched the priest and altar boys walk up the aisle, Swiss Guard closely behind them. I stayed about halfway through. I appreciate the sanctity and reverence of the ceremony, but the Guard is what made me leave. I don't want to get into specifics or huge theological arguments- you can interpret that as you will.
On Saturday, my friends and I woke up and went to the Capitoline Museum, where we saw the original sculpture of the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus as well as the remains of Augustus's statue that was once in his basilica in the Roman Forum. It was absolutely humongous- his foot was easily a person and a half longer than me. Afterwards, we rendez-vous'd to the Circus Maximus (original chariot tracks) and saw the Cappucine Crypt- another all-bone church. This one was made up of only monk bones however, complete with outfits or still-rotting corpses. Delish.
That night, we went to a local club where the dance floor was on par size-wise with the bathroom. Enormous fun- until I gave the bartender 2 Euro and asked for the strongest shot he could make. Thanks for the tequila and limoncello, Fabrizio.
On Sunday, we hiked up to Villa Borghese- the biggest park in Rome. After renting bikes and exploring the gardens, we chilled on a bench and watched dogs playing with each other. Note- Italian dogs are just like American dogs. Minogue- One was named Nina. You know how I feel about animals with people names. After effectively tiring ourselves out, we ate at a pizzeria called Rosso Pomodoro (Red Tomato- wow! I'm learning stuff here!). I got a broccoli and Napoli sausage pizza with fizzy lemonade. Magnifico.
Sorry this wasn't more entertaining- but I really enjoyed spending time in Roma and getting more familiar with the 7 hills. Next up is Berlin.
Aufweidersen! (or something),
Cason
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
"Walk two blocks that way and then ask someone else. This is Venice, honey."
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Pra-ha-ha-ha-ha
DISCLAIMER--- FOR RELATIVES OR OTHER AUTHORITY TYPES READING THIS ENTRY- SOME THINGS THAT ARE ILLEGAL IN THE STATES ARE QUITE LEGAL IN PRAGUE. PLEASE DO NOT HOLD WHAT YOU MAY DISCOVER BELOW AGAINST ME, NOR BRING IT UP AT FAMILY GATHERINGS. THANK YOU.
Well chickadees, I had one of the best weekends ever. It all started with Thursday afternoon, when we had our first wine tasting lesson. Cramped up in a cellar in the basement of our cooking school, we all learned how to A) open a bottle of wine B) read/understand the label and C) the reasoning behind swishing it around, the smell, the color, the taste, and the aftertaste. Giuseppe, our sommelier, turned off the lights so we could utilize our senses as best as we could to discern the different layers of the wine. We would all be silent, inhaling the smells of our wine, sipping silently and thoughtfully, until he would yell out, "OH-KAI?!? Is very good, no?!?", effectively making us drop our glasses.
Then, about half the study abroad group jumped on WizzAir to Prague for the weekend. After a good night's sleep in the hostel, we woke up to do a walking tour, where we saw the astronomical clock, the New and Old Town Squares, the Prague Castle and cathedral, St. Charles bridge, the Lennon Wall, and much much more. I fell in love with the Lennon Wall, where young Czechs/people in general go to write down their messages of peace and love.
After all this, we went out to dinner at Kozicka, where we all shared dumplings, goulash, and spatzle washed down with hot wine. We didn't leave without stealing a steaknife, however, because of a weird girl we met in the tour group. She was travelling by herself, getting oddjobs in different cities around Europe and living with her on and off Irish boyfriend at the ripe age of 19. One of the girls in our group mistakenly told her what hostel we were saying at, and she said she'd love to switch and stay with us. Considering the security at our hostel consisted of one locked door, we pushed the armoire in front of ours before falling asleep, steaknife at the ready.
Before crashing, we went on the Clock Tower Pub Crawl, where we went to three different clubs and met people from all over the world. Absinthe shots stowed away in our stomachs, the second stop on the crawl led us to Chapeau Rouge- an underground club with more concentrated marijuana haze than Cheech's van. Drugs were openly being bought and sold, so I took a few hits with a Jack and Leo from London. It was pretty weak stuff, but the thrill of such an open exchange of pot made my buzz that much more intense. All I could think about was that movie Reefer Madness and how insanely difficult it would be to ever change drug laws in America. You are allowed to possess and purchase small quantities in Prague starting this past January 1, but Americans are expected to mow through mounds of cocaine like nasal skiiers if given any amount of privilege in the drug exchange. Whatever. The next bar was more posh and clubby, like the ones I expected to find in Europe. When trying to buy some beers, I confused Coronas with Korona, the national currency. After walking away from the bar, my friend and I were hunted down by bodyguards and yanked over to the side of the bar, where the manly female bartender furiously shouted "WHY YOU NO PAY ME! WHY YOU NO PAY!", I tried explaining myself, but considering that they spoke no English, they confined me to the wall until I threw some more change at them and melted back into the crowd.
On the second day, my friends and I figured out the train and travelled to Kutna Hora, where there is a bone church. Made out of the bodies of Black Plague victims, the place was like walking on the set of the Goonies, except everything was made out of skeletons, not just the organ.
A really lively place. Once we got back to the city center, we managed to visit the Dancing House, designed by Frank Gehry (Milennium Park). It was awesome looking and made me even more jealous of their architecture. We then saw the astronomical clock ring, and hightailed it to the metro to visit a friend of a friend who is studying there for a semester. He took us to an authentic restaurant where I ate more dumplings and goulash and tried just a tiiiiny bit of rabbit. Couldn't get images of Thumper out of my head to venture further.
Then comes the best part of the trip. We went to this bar called Cross Club. The only way to describe the layout is that it matches what I can only assume is the inside of WALL-E. Light up moving mechanical objects covered the walls and it was laid out like a maze, with different shaped rooms and lowered ceilings so we had to crouch down to sit at a table. We found a dance floor with a DJ and plenty of people tripping to some electronic jam band music mish mash mayhem. We decided to get a little more inebriated before making out way back, and I started to talk to a young and old man in one of the chiller rooms. The younger was a 28 year old electrician who loved the "adrenaline" feeling of his dangerous job and grew pot to chill out when he wasn't on the clock. The older man, however, stole my heart. He is around 60 years old and a self-proclaimed hippie without a cause. We talked about Woodstock, his attempts at yogic practice in India, life in China, LSD trips in Amsterdam cafes, and how he would never want to be my age today. The man is probably a con artist and pathological liar, but I accepted the marijuana he offered and we bonded some more. He has the life I lack the balls to try, so I gave him my email address to learn more about how he came to be the couch surfing, virtually penniless but spiritually wealthy person he is today. I've already gotten to read a rundown of his life (burning draft cards, losing his virginity with a man in a protest outside the Pentagon, living with a candle crafter in Denmark, visits to his mother in America with his heavily tattooed 50 year old girlfriend) and I can't wait to learn more. Call me gullible, but I can't ignore a guy who met Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.
Anywho, after some dancing and drinking, we found our way back to the hostel to prepare for day 3. We visited the Jewish cemetery, where about 12,000 graves are stacked on top of each other in order to avoid desecrating the others around it in a space confined to them by the Nazis.
Really moving. Even more so was the museum, where they had drawings made by children detained in concentration camps. It was a very sobering experience and I want to learn more about Jewish-European struggles when I go to Berlin in a few weeks and possibly Poland.
After some shopping, we all exhaustedly went back to the airport. Now, when 30 Rock joked that "nothing makes sense, it's like an Italian airport", they were clearly mistaken, in that it should have been a Czech airport. Since my friend and I checked in online, we had blew through security and went to the gate, while my other friends had to check in and get stickers on their luggage confirming it was the right size to go on the plane. I got stopped before boarding, and they made me put my backpack in the bin, which, to no surprise, fit perfectly. The flight attendants on board, however, stopped my two friends, who had THE SAME BACKPACK, one of which was tagged as being the right size, and made them stow their bags under the plane. What. the. hell. I had to laugh- especially because they were then asked to sit in the emergency exit rows because they speak English. Oh, the inconsistencies of Europa.
Well, I must rest up. I have an excursion to a vineyard on Friday and am going to Venice for Carnivale (European Halloween) on Friday. My life is so hard.
Buona notte,
Cason
Well chickadees, I had one of the best weekends ever. It all started with Thursday afternoon, when we had our first wine tasting lesson. Cramped up in a cellar in the basement of our cooking school, we all learned how to A) open a bottle of wine B) read/understand the label and C) the reasoning behind swishing it around, the smell, the color, the taste, and the aftertaste. Giuseppe, our sommelier, turned off the lights so we could utilize our senses as best as we could to discern the different layers of the wine. We would all be silent, inhaling the smells of our wine, sipping silently and thoughtfully, until he would yell out, "OH-KAI?!? Is very good, no?!?", effectively making us drop our glasses.
Then, about half the study abroad group jumped on WizzAir to Prague for the weekend. After a good night's sleep in the hostel, we woke up to do a walking tour, where we saw the astronomical clock, the New and Old Town Squares, the Prague Castle and cathedral, St. Charles bridge, the Lennon Wall, and much much more. I fell in love with the Lennon Wall, where young Czechs/people in general go to write down their messages of peace and love.
After all this, we went out to dinner at Kozicka, where we all shared dumplings, goulash, and spatzle washed down with hot wine. We didn't leave without stealing a steaknife, however, because of a weird girl we met in the tour group. She was travelling by herself, getting oddjobs in different cities around Europe and living with her on and off Irish boyfriend at the ripe age of 19. One of the girls in our group mistakenly told her what hostel we were saying at, and she said she'd love to switch and stay with us. Considering the security at our hostel consisted of one locked door, we pushed the armoire in front of ours before falling asleep, steaknife at the ready.
Before crashing, we went on the Clock Tower Pub Crawl, where we went to three different clubs and met people from all over the world. Absinthe shots stowed away in our stomachs, the second stop on the crawl led us to Chapeau Rouge- an underground club with more concentrated marijuana haze than Cheech's van. Drugs were openly being bought and sold, so I took a few hits with a Jack and Leo from London. It was pretty weak stuff, but the thrill of such an open exchange of pot made my buzz that much more intense. All I could think about was that movie Reefer Madness and how insanely difficult it would be to ever change drug laws in America. You are allowed to possess and purchase small quantities in Prague starting this past January 1, but Americans are expected to mow through mounds of cocaine like nasal skiiers if given any amount of privilege in the drug exchange. Whatever. The next bar was more posh and clubby, like the ones I expected to find in Europe. When trying to buy some beers, I confused Coronas with Korona, the national currency. After walking away from the bar, my friend and I were hunted down by bodyguards and yanked over to the side of the bar, where the manly female bartender furiously shouted "WHY YOU NO PAY ME! WHY YOU NO PAY!", I tried explaining myself, but considering that they spoke no English, they confined me to the wall until I threw some more change at them and melted back into the crowd.
On the second day, my friends and I figured out the train and travelled to Kutna Hora, where there is a bone church. Made out of the bodies of Black Plague victims, the place was like walking on the set of the Goonies, except everything was made out of skeletons, not just the organ.
A really lively place. Once we got back to the city center, we managed to visit the Dancing House, designed by Frank Gehry (Milennium Park). It was awesome looking and made me even more jealous of their architecture. We then saw the astronomical clock ring, and hightailed it to the metro to visit a friend of a friend who is studying there for a semester. He took us to an authentic restaurant where I ate more dumplings and goulash and tried just a tiiiiny bit of rabbit. Couldn't get images of Thumper out of my head to venture further.
Then comes the best part of the trip. We went to this bar called Cross Club. The only way to describe the layout is that it matches what I can only assume is the inside of WALL-E. Light up moving mechanical objects covered the walls and it was laid out like a maze, with different shaped rooms and lowered ceilings so we had to crouch down to sit at a table. We found a dance floor with a DJ and plenty of people tripping to some electronic jam band music mish mash mayhem. We decided to get a little more inebriated before making out way back, and I started to talk to a young and old man in one of the chiller rooms. The younger was a 28 year old electrician who loved the "adrenaline" feeling of his dangerous job and grew pot to chill out when he wasn't on the clock. The older man, however, stole my heart. He is around 60 years old and a self-proclaimed hippie without a cause. We talked about Woodstock, his attempts at yogic practice in India, life in China, LSD trips in Amsterdam cafes, and how he would never want to be my age today. The man is probably a con artist and pathological liar, but I accepted the marijuana he offered and we bonded some more. He has the life I lack the balls to try, so I gave him my email address to learn more about how he came to be the couch surfing, virtually penniless but spiritually wealthy person he is today. I've already gotten to read a rundown of his life (burning draft cards, losing his virginity with a man in a protest outside the Pentagon, living with a candle crafter in Denmark, visits to his mother in America with his heavily tattooed 50 year old girlfriend) and I can't wait to learn more. Call me gullible, but I can't ignore a guy who met Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.
Anywho, after some dancing and drinking, we found our way back to the hostel to prepare for day 3. We visited the Jewish cemetery, where about 12,000 graves are stacked on top of each other in order to avoid desecrating the others around it in a space confined to them by the Nazis.
Really moving. Even more so was the museum, where they had drawings made by children detained in concentration camps. It was a very sobering experience and I want to learn more about Jewish-European struggles when I go to Berlin in a few weeks and possibly Poland.
After some shopping, we all exhaustedly went back to the airport. Now, when 30 Rock joked that "nothing makes sense, it's like an Italian airport", they were clearly mistaken, in that it should have been a Czech airport. Since my friend and I checked in online, we had blew through security and went to the gate, while my other friends had to check in and get stickers on their luggage confirming it was the right size to go on the plane. I got stopped before boarding, and they made me put my backpack in the bin, which, to no surprise, fit perfectly. The flight attendants on board, however, stopped my two friends, who had THE SAME BACKPACK, one of which was tagged as being the right size, and made them stow their bags under the plane. What. the. hell. I had to laugh- especially because they were then asked to sit in the emergency exit rows because they speak English. Oh, the inconsistencies of Europa.
Well, I must rest up. I have an excursion to a vineyard on Friday and am going to Venice for Carnivale (European Halloween) on Friday. My life is so hard.
Buona notte,
Cason
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