Entry 5: June 26, 2008

This past Monday we left our second host town of Lugano, Switzerland, and headed our separate ways. My group and I went to Munich that day and got there in the late afternoon. We were going to take a bike tour of the city with Mike's Bike Tours, but when we showed up at 4 p.m., nobody was around and it had started to pour! About 15 minutes later, we went back out and started to walk to our hotel. However, we found the group that was meeting for the tours and got sucked into taking it. It was definitely worth it, though! It was a four hour tour, and we visited several monuments and churches of Munich.

After the tour, we were going to go out to dinner. By the time we were ready, it was about 11p.m. It was my birthday on Monday, so Lesley, Jennie Lee and I really wanted to go out to dinner. Luckily, Hard Rock was still open, so we went and had a great time with yummy food. They gave me a beautiful ring that I had admired at the jewelry maker's back in Sansepolcro. They had carried it all the way from Italy for five weeks for me...those are true friends.

The next day we visited Dauchau Concentration Camp, which was very moving and interesting to visit. It was a lot bigger that we had thought it was going to be, and saw the barracks, the prisons, the meeting rooms, the crematorium, and learned a lot of information from the museum inside the barracks. Our next stop that day was Paris, and we were so excited to see what that city held for us.

Entry 4: June 18, 2008

Last weekend, a group of us went for a day to Interlaken, Switzerland. We had been for an afternoon and night a few days previously and ate Mexican food...oh my goodness, we didn't realize how much we missed it! This time, however, we weren't there for food, we were there for adventure and an adrenaline rush and had so many options, like canyoning, paragliding, skydiving - but the only thing we were allowed to do was go rafting, so we decided to forego the extreme (and the disciplinary actions of professors) and jump on it.

We left for rafting about four in the afternoon and it was cloudy and cold. We got to the site where there were tents, wetsuits, and helmets galore! All of us were fitted with a wetsuit, a jacket, water shoes, a life jacket, and a beaming yellow helmet. Our group of nine girls had to split up when we got to the river, so Julia, Whitney, Lesley and I were in one and the other five girls in another. Our guide, Rayno, was from South Africa and had been a raft guide for 11 years, so we knew that he knew what he was doing. We rafted over rapids and it was hard work, but it was so much fun and amazing to see the Alps as our scenery.

The water was freezing cold, and at the end of our whole trip, he told us we could jump in the lake if we wanted to, so we all did. I don't really know what I was thinking - oh wait, actually, I do - I was thinking that it couldn't be that much colder than what we had been soaked with in the raft. Let's just say, I was wrong. So wrong, in fact, that when I jumped in, I didn't even know I had hit the water it was so cold!! Fortunately, we didn't die of hypothermia and made it back safely with numb limbs. It was so worth it, though, and I would love to go back and do it again...on a warmer day.

Entry 3: June 5, 2008

Today we got back from our second travel break. This time we went to Venice, and true to legend, it is incredibly beautiful and sigh inspiring...except for the huge groups of tourists fresh off of the cruise ships! Three girls and I traveled together and experienced this area of Italy together. Tuesday and Wednesday were our full days, and we definitely spent them well!

On Tuesday we visited St. Mark's Basilica, which was worth waiting in a long line for. The ceilings and floors are covered in some of the greatest examples of Byzantine mosaics---the ceilings have an amazing golden glow from the golden tiles used. At first I thought the ceiling was covered in gold paint and oil paintings, but once I got up close, I realized that they were the intricate and heavily detailed mosaics.

We also visited the island of Murano, where all of the glass-blown art originated and is still handcrafted there. I was able to watch some the artists work with the glass, and the whole island was filled with amazing works of glass art, jewelry, lamps, bowls, you name it! That night, we made sure to take a gondola ride, no matter what the expense, and we had a wonderfully charming gondolier and many people on the boats or water taxis took our pictures...that was a little strange, but we all smiled and waved accommodatingly.

On Wednesday, we toured the Peggy Guggenheim museum, which is filled with contemporary artwork, including some by Jackson Pollack, Dali, and Picasso. We also took about two hours to visit the Doge's Palace, which houses the largest oil painting in the world, Paradise, which sits about the Doge's throne.

It was a perfectly filled and yet tiring travel break, and I am thrilled that I was able to visit the beautiful Venice...it's just too bad we didn't find our own Casanova!

Entry 2: May 30, 2008

Our first travel break was this past week. It was a little nerve-wracking to be out in the world with several other girls by ourselves, but we did a great job with reservations and figuring out the train and bus schedules, so we were fine. Six girls and I went to Rome for one day and Capri/Anacapri for two days.

We only had an afternoon and night in Rome, so we saw the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps. We tried to find the Trevi Fountain, but got lost and decided we should just go back to the hotel. The next day we took a train, a ferry (or hydrofoil), and a bus to get to our Anacapri hotel, Villa Eva. It was such a nice play to stay, but the only bad part was that there were so many bugs around because of the beautiful garden surrounding the whole villa.

Some highlights of our Anacapri trip were great food, a chairlift up an Anacapri mountain and the panoramic view after we got to the top, handmade Italian leather shoes (and Gwyneth Paltrow was there last week to buy shoes for her daughter!), and swimming in the Blue Grotto. The Blue Grotto is a cave that houses bright blue water that absolutely glows, and some of the locals told us we should go swimming in it. It was amazing!

I wish we had had more time there, but our one full day was absolutely filled with everything we wanted to do. Hopefully someday I'll be able to go back, but for now I'm left with memories of a beautiful island and a perfect travel break.

Entry 1: May 22, 2008

Today was our travel day to Florence. In order to get to Florence, we had to take a bus and a train, so the first adventure we had was figuring out the schedules of both the bus and train. Thankfully, we were all on time and got to Florence safely.

After our arrival, we toured the Uffizi gallery, which houses paintings by della Francesca, Botticelli, and da Vinci. My favorite painting that I saw there was "The Birth of Venus" by da Vinci. After touring the art gallery for a while, we headed over to see the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Duomo. The cathedral is the fourth largest cathedral in the world and it is an absolutely beautiful church made from green and white marble. Some girls climbed to the top of the Duomo (or the huge dome), which was about 464 steps.

After seeing the church, we viewed several statues in the Piazz della Signoria, such as a very good copy of Michelangelo's David and Ammannati's Fontana di Nettuno. Shopping at the large outdoor market was next. This covered market contains stands that sell pashminas, scarves, clothing, jewelry, artwork and various leather goods, like jackets and purses. After shopping, we headed back to catch the train and the bus to get back to Sanselpolcro. It was a tiring trip, but well worth the time and effort!