Spring Break

Well. Well. Well. I have quite a lot of updating to do, don't I? At first, I was thinking of doing a three part entry: one for Spain, one for my two days alone in Paris, and one for the rest of my time in Versailles and Paris with friends. But you know what? That's a heck of a lot of writing and I have a heck of a lot more on my plate, such as the fact that I withdrew over $300 from my banking account and now have the equivalent of 60 Euro to last me until May 22, the fact that I have done little to no homework for my one difficult class this semester, and the fact that gorgeous weather is now here to stay in Rome.

Madrid was eclectic, to say the least. I went to visit my friend Owen, who is studying there and vastly more fluent than any other students I've met. Thank God for that, too, considering that I accidentally booked my hostel at 11:00 pm, forgetting that it was actually at 23:00. Many scolding fingers and helpless shrugs later, he helped me get settled in. Not for too long, though, because the next day I went with his friends to Valencia to celebrate Las Falles, a celebration that somehow involves St. Joseph but mostly involves the creation of humongous and beautiful statues that...get burned down at midnight. Kind of sad, but mostly awesome for the 8 year old boy in me to witness.



After taking a 6 am bus home, I forced myself to visit both major art museums, where I saw at least ten pieces that I learned about in Art History class senior year. Seeing that and the Palacio Real and the city park was the extent of my sightseeing- the sangria and paella at night usually tuckered me out. Although I sort of wished I went to Barcelona, the "crazier" city of Spain, Madrid had its own share of shock- such as the prostitutes that lined Gran Via, offering to suck my friend's dick while casually leaning against the window of McDonald's. Gives new meaning to the happy meal, doesn't it?

Anywho, then I was off to Paris. From Monday to Tuesday night, I was alone to wander the streets of the city I was most excited to visit. Surprisingly, I want to go into the least detail here. I did everything, basically- the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, at least ten churches, a day trip to Versailles (and for fifteen Euro, it really wasn't much better than the Palacio Real in Madrid), climbed the Eiffel Tower, ate crepes in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and, by far the best thing I did, was see a Moulin Rouge show. Complete with champagne and a woman swimming with snakes, it was everything I thought it would be. I don't think my smile left my face the whole time, especially when looking at the outfits. They were gorgeous, and so meticulously crafted to outline the boobs. The boobs, by the way, were all extremely well-shaped and perky, not huge and flouncy like I expected. They really choose the most perfectly shaped women they could find- a fact I faced by eating Italian Oreos in my hostel bed later. It's okay though- I befriended the night bus driver on the way home and he let me drive it around a corner. Girls with 10 tits don't have all the fun.

Travelling by myself for a while was a welcome treat. I learned a bit of French in high school, which took me a long way in this place where, upsettingly, I found the people to mostly match the stereotype of being snooty. At one point, after climbing up the steps of Sacre-Coeur and watching a guy do tricks with a soccer ball that Pele couldn't even do, I realized that I have grown a lot this trip. Not only did I get myself from my Madrid hostel to my Paris hostel by myself, but I genuinely enjoyed sharing my dinner with The Fountainhead and resting with the birds outside St. Sulpice. If I've learned anything so far (beyond how to cook risotto and that I should hate the Italian prime minister), it is that I need to take risks, do the things that I know will truly make me happy, and spend time just simply sitting and enjoying.



It's not like I can afford to do much else now anyway.

-Sarah

Rome-ing

It's finally happened. For a few weeks, I had the notion that this semester I would get my fill of Rome, that I would probably never return. This past weekend was a proverbial slap in the face- "This is ROME, Sarah. Cities don't get much more beautiful than this, more ancient, more dysfunctional and surprising. You will never see it all". And I'm listening.

A week ago, some Italian boys that we met invited us over for dinner. They (and not their mama, I asked) made a huge vat of pasta with porchetta (pig meat), slices of horse meat, mozzarella di bufala, eggplant, jugs of wine...it was perfetto. At the beginning of the trip, I never would have done such a thing. Go to an Italian's apartment? That is asking for a reverse-Amanda Knox-murder-trial scenario. However, after drunkenly accepting rides home from discotecas (oops) and establishing a very sturdy text relationship, we decided it would be alright.

And it was. We all ate and laughed around a giant table and I learned more things about the Italian youth than I have in all of my classes combined. They all live with their mothers until they are about thirty because school takes that long- and a school year is measured in tests, not weeks or semesters. If they want to bring a girl home, "if you are at one end of house, and your parents are at other, is okay!" We learned that they don't trouble themselves with politics, mainly because the Prime Minister is a complete and total slimeball.

We taught them how to play beer pong and Connections, and they taught us "Limone", an Italian variant of Zumay Zumay. So fun. One of them is turning 25 this Wednesday, and we've been invited over for the celebration. You can bet your balls that invite was accepted.

This past weekend, I relaxed a little and visited the catacombs of San Sebastian, a network of over 7 miles of 100,000 tombs built because Ancient Roman law prohibited the burial of bodies inside the city walls. Christians hid there when being persecuted, and had to eat, pray, and generally live amongst the dead. Creepy. After that, we strolled along the Appian Way, which was the original road leading to Rome. It was beautiful and filled with dog poop.

After failing miserably at finding a pub with the Illini/Wisconsin game on, we called it a night. The next day, we meandered around Trastevere market, where I almost, but did not quite, buy a ton of crap. Followed by a day of studying on a park bench on the Juniculum hill and playing with some bambinos that creeped up to us, I would say that this was a successful day of Roman living. By far, though, the best experience so far has been that night with the Italian guys. That, as far as I'm concerned, is what studying abroad is all about.

Next up: spring break in Spain and France. Oh Dios Mio!
-Cason

Amsterdamned if You Do, Amsterdamned if You Don't

Assuming my brain is on the mend, I will try and let you all know as explicitly as possible what went down this weekend. Two days was quite enough debauchery and shock for me, and I feel like boarding the plane back to Rome this morning was a definite and solid goodbye to a city that is so magically open-minded and free that I want to relish this trip as an incredible voyage to realms of human pleasure that need to be experienced in relative modesty in order to retain the spectacle for life.

That being said, I feel like shit today. After puking in a potted plant in the Amsterdam airport and sleeping on the ground for about 2 hours total, I was Dam tired. But I am getting ahead of myself. On Friday, we hopped on a night plane to Amsterdam. Upon landing, I was all prepared to tram our way to the hostel, until we met our first Dutch man. He stared at us as we huddled in the kiosk, and started to call us assholes for not accepting the candy he was holding out. After trying to take our picture and laughing maniacally in what I can only assume was the voice of the devil possessing him, he said "fuck you black devils" and walked away. To be cautious, and because we realized we were waiting for the tram going in the wrong direction, we walked a few blocks away to the correct kiosk. What do you know--- the man showed up soon after. He had been following us. Luckily, there was another group of girls in the same waiting area that he decided to bug instead. When they walked away, he followed- our cue to hop in a taxi to our hostel. Wonder if they are alright...

But I'm alive, so it doesn't matter. After dropping our shit off, we wandered around to buy some marijuana brownies so we could have a good night's sleep. Too bad so sad- the coffeeshops where weed is legally sold all close after about 10 pm :( We got entertained in a different way, though- our extremely hairy Indian hostelmate stumbled into the room at about 5 am and ate chips two feet away from my face. Love roughing it.

The next morning, we went on a free walking tour (that's how I see so much on my trips, Aunt Mary!) and saw the beautiful and kooky architecture of Amsterdam. The land taxes you pay are based on the surface area of your house, so many of the buildings are smaller on the bottom and grow up and out, thus causing them to all lean onto each other. Makes for some great pictures. More so than that, however, are the prostitutes beckoning to you from windows at noon. According to our tour guide, the current Dutch government is looking to essentially shut the Red Light District down by 2013. What does that mean for us? Pack in everything we can.


Monument in the ground symbolizing the open-mindedness of Holland...

Therefore, we headed to a nearby coffeeshop to indulge. While one of my friends had a space cake (pot brownie), me and three other girls decided to purchase a pre-rolled joint. Conveniently, coffee shops (and the smart shops, which sell more hallucinogenic drugs and amphetamines), outline each type of drug with the intensity, length of influence, and bodily effect. We chose a spliff with Northern Lights and gaily smoked it in the shop, the other customers rolling their eyes at our excitement. Whatevs. After getting a pretty good high going, we bought tickets to the Van Gogh museum. iPod and journal in hand, I must say I was disappointed by the exhibit. Out of the approximate 200 self-portraits Van Gogh completed in his lifetime due to a lack of funds to get models, the museum had about 3, none of which showcased his insanity. Also, the famous bedroom painting was on loan to another museum. Would have liked to have known that ahead of time before shelling out 14 Euro for the experience, but I am glad I got to see paintings from his flower still-life stage. So beautiful, so decorating my walls when I have money and...well, walls that are not also housing my beer posters.

After eating our weight in tapas, because Italy lacks ethnic food that I have been craving, we went on the Red Light District barcrawl. At night, the district is a completely different place. Obviously, red lights still outline the prostitute's windows, but they reflect off the canals and multiply by 1000. Sex shops light up too-advertising Real Couples! Teen Sex! Animal Show! AHHHHHHHH. Even I couldn't stomach that one, but for 25 Euro, I would lie if I was saying I didn't consider it. Anywho, the bars we went to were actually pretty tame, and with my one friend passed out from the space cake and the other forced to take her home, I was left with a Brit named Adam who actually told me that I have "the cutest accent". Damn English bloke definitely knows how to twist things into his favor. Might have brought him back to the hostel...thank goodness the Indian was gone and he dropped Euro on the floor when he left. Sometimes, bad decisions can be good decisions.

Sober enough, we woke up and went to the Anne Frank house, where we got to see the annex she lived in with 7 other people before being ratted out by a still unknown informant and dying in a concentration camp a month before its liberation. Very poignant- the pictures she pasted on the walls were still intact, as were the markings of she and her sister's height and the bookcase hiding their stairwell. The only survivor of the 8 was her father, who eventually found and read the diary that she had already begun revising in the hopes of publishing her story, The Secret Annex. It was very moving and I highly suggest you visit if ever in the Dam.

To uplift our spirits, we went to the Heineken Experience shortly afterwards to learn a little more about my favorite beverage. I tasted wort, or barley and water (blech) saw the horses, and tried out a "See How Well of a Bartender You Are" game, which I of course passed with flying colors.


Come to Mama

After getting a little buzzed, we decided to do the ultimate. Friends and family- please pass no judgment- we were too cheap to book a hostel, needed some energy, and needed to do something extraordinary while it is still legal. We headed into a smartshop and purchased some herbal...let's say...energy helpers- 8 pills of which that were supposed to give us a body high in 90 minutes from the intial ingestion. After eating some delish Chinese food, we grabbed our backpacks from the hostel, took the first of what we were instructed to be 4 doses of the good stuff, and wandered around the district. Drunkenly the night before, we decided we needed to talk to a whore, which, by the way, is a PC term there. We decided 15 euro was a good price to talk to her for five minutes. Us innocent little Americans just wanted to know a few things, such as does she get tired of sex at the end of the day, what do her parents think, and did she aspire to be a prostitute, or is this job a necessity for surviving? Despite the gawking (and, might I add, almost all male) tourists, we knocked on a few windows, only to find that it is a flat rate of 50 Euro to even enter the room with her. Even when we lowered our standards from blonde, natural, and attractive, to non-transvestite, the rate would not change.

Oh well, at least we gave it a shot. Noticing that the first pill hadn't really affected us, we popped another and made our way to a club. It was alright at first, just a DJ playing some beats and a few people dancing, but we were excited to get our dance on. After checking our backpacks and heading to the stage, we realized that these pills were really doing nothing to make us happy or, in our minds, better dancers. We went to the bathroom and opened the next pack of four pills, only to discover that these were filled with powder, whereas the first pack had pellets inside of the capsules. At this point, we were pretty sure we had been conned, especially because when we were counting the last of our Euro coins in front of the smart shop man, he said "Oh my god, just take the second pack for free". We were determined to stay awake until heading for the airport, so we broke the capsules, licked up the powder (by far the shadiest thing I have ever done, and in a bathroom no less), and went back the dance floor.

What do you know- my legs felt like jelly and I danced a little more. I waited and waited- still no euphoria. Still no feelings of intense comraderie with my fellow drug abusers. Still no onset of disabling horniness. What I did happen to feel was intense fatigue and nausea. After sitting on the stage edge and passing out, the dreadlocked bartender nudged me awake and told me I need to go home. The other girls weren't feeling the best either, so we got our bags and trudged to the airport to pass out on the floor.


What I was hoping to experience, but didn't

Although I vomited, tried a drug I never have (even though it was probably just flour, paprika, and a tiny bit of MDMA), and talked to a prostitute, I still didn't get to trip on shrooms (no time in 2 days for a 4 hour trip). However, I pushed my boundaries and for that I am proud. For now, I need to continue nursing my hangover and think back wistfully to the craziest 2 nights of my existence. That is, if my brain isn't too full of holes, or at least that's what I think ecstasy does to you. You know, if that is what I actually took.

Alive but Dead-
Cason

News Flash: Not All German Women are Borderline Male

Guten Tag! Just got back from Berlin after an 8 hour delay due to "a missing pilot." For real, easyJet? At least we got a 4.50 Euro voucher to go mad with at the Duty Free shop aka I bought Milka, the most delicious chocolate in the world, only to find it is in my local Italian supermarket for about a quarter of the price. Stupid, stupid me.

Anyway, Berlin was a great experience. I kept debating about going to Munich or Berlin (because both were way too expensive for a 3 day weekend) and I decided to go with the capital because I figured there would be a lot more history to see. And I was extremely correct. On our free walking tour, we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the new Holocaust Memorial, which was extremely moving, as you are supposed to walk through it and reflect:


The stones are sprayed with anti-graffiti spray from a company that originally manufactured gas to the Nazis- a point of huge controversy for Berliners

We also saw the site of Hitler's suicide, which is now a paved-over parking lot with only a diagram to mark the area. Germans thought it best not to build a potential mecca for Neo-Nazis, and I agree. We also saw Checkpoint Charlie, which was the American checkpoint between East and West Berlin, as well as the remains of the Wall, which were recently re-muraled to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall. I can only hope David Hasselhoff was present this time, too.


The Italian artist contribution

That night, we bought some 60 Euro-cent forties of Pilsner, Zubr and Rothbrau and pregamed with our hostel roommates, who were 4 boys studying in London. We went to this crazy club called Maria's which was essentially in an abandoned warehouse. Lots of characters at that one- the dreadlocks and hairy armpits went on for days.

The next day was extremely sobering- pun not intended. We took a train to Orenienburg, a town about an hour outside of Berlin that is the site of the first concentration camp set up by the Soviet Union in Prussia. It was the concentration camp from which all others were modeled. It was extremely haunting to see the housing structures, the pits where people were slaughtered in masses, original ovens, and, the worst part, the tables and medical rooms used for human experiments. I thought that between school and Schindler's List, I had had a grasp of the enormity of suffering that the Holocaust had caused to Jewish, Polish, Czech, and more outcasts of the time, but it was not until I saw the gas chambers themselves and this chilling quote that I finally understood: Upon leading new prisoners into the camp, a Nazi pointed to one of them and said, "See that smoke rising out of the chimney? That's your only way to freedom." Ugh.

To brighten our spirits, we downed some currywurst, took a quick nap, and hopped on the U-Bahn to the Berlin pub crawl. It brought us to some interesting clubs, like abandoned garages-turned-rap venues, Jagermeister pubs, and the best, factories filled with cages of people dancing and smoking rooms. We met a bachelor party, the head of which wore shorts with suspenders and was apparently very anxious to get as much female attention toward his leiderhosen as possible. Lots of pictures that Blogspot would ban are now in my personal Berlin collection, if anyone is interested. The (albeit diluted) Jager shots took their toll on me, and I eventually lost my friends and befriended a lovely German man named Stefan who hailed from Hamburg. The guy barely spoke English, and we all know the only word I appreciate in German is fahrt (translates to trip, but still very giggle-worthy), but we made a good connection and I gave him my email. Because that's what they ask for here.

The next day, we groggily pulled ourselves out of bed and hoofed it to the Jewish Museum, which was probably the best museum I've ever been to. The architect designed it to be uncomfortable for the visitor, what with its unparallel walls, slanted floors, and staircases leading to nowhere. It was three floors full of interactive Jewish history lessons, like a convert your name to Hebrew machine and a "break the glass" wedding game. Zabes- I must be invited to yours. Despite the Holocaust Tower, a sectioned off room with a hugely vaulted ceiling and one tiny window as a source of light to remind you of their isolation- it was a merrier way to celebrate Judaism. Definitely an uplifting morning that I needed to counteract the day before. After that, we wandered around the weird shops (Ass-Store? Schmucks?) and made our way to the Erotik Museum. Ten Euro, but SO WORTH IT. It was INTERACTIVE, as seen below:



After that exciting break from history lessons and depressing excursions, we got a huge meal of potato-shnitzel, brussel sprouts, and dessert, which was pineapple ravioli filled with white chocolate. SO INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS.



To round out our Sunday night, we caught the tail-end of the USA/Canada hockey game (much to the chagrin of our extremely nationalistic hostel staff) and slept on the cold benches in the Schonefeld airport until our flight. Despite how we looked 12 hours later and still without a flight home...



I had an incredible time on the wurst fahrt ever, as was expected. Next up is Amsterdam...Lord help us all.

Ciao ciao!
Cason