Entry 6: June 25, 2008

Greetings from MUNICH! Whitney and I are using the internet from our hostel, which is a really nice place, full of other young kids, mostly backpackers traveling through Europe. Yesterday was our first full day here, but when we arrived on Monday, we were with a bunch of the other girls. We all did Mike's Bike Tour and went to visit the second largest beer garden in the world - The Chinese Bier Garden. We all got T-shirts and hung out for our last night together before everyone went their separate ways.

Yesterday, Whitney and I went on a tour of Dachau, the concentration camp. Our tour guide was really smart and was able to tell us a lot of things that I did not know before. The sun was really hot, but it was a really important experience.

After Dachau, we met up with Lauryn and Amanda for a late dinner and dessert and walked around exploring the city. Munich is a fantastic place and it has a lot of great history.

Today, we woke up and went to the zoo with Lauryn and Amanda, and it was a lot of fun. After the zoo, we hit up the Hard Rock Cafe here and enjoyed good ol' fashioned American burgers and fries! But most importantly, free refills!

We leave on Friday for Zurich...I can't believe six weeks have gone by so fast. Can't wait to see everyone when I get home!

Entry 5: June 18, 2008

Hey all! It's been a while since I wrote, and a lot has happened since then! I've been to Stechelberg, Gimmelwald, Interlaken again, and then traveled on to Lugano, Switzerland, where I'm staying for the week at Franklin College! We have great facilities here. We each have our own rooms, our own bathrooms, and our own kitchenettes, which is a nice change from the hostels and many-person hotels we have stayed at lately.

Switzerland is absolutely mesmerizing. I have never seen a more beautiful place. The mountains in Stechelberg and Gimmelwald glittered at the top with white snow, but the bottoms of them were unbelievably green and full of nature. A bunch of the girls and I went whitewater rafting on our stay in Interlaken, which was a blast. We got a CD with a slideshow of pictures, so that will be fun to show everyone whenever I get home.

I can't believe it is less than two weeks until I will be back in America again. In some ways it feels like I just left yesterday, but in other ways it feels like I have been here for months. I'm having such a great time, and I can't explain the value of the friendships I've made. My group of close friends here have made a pact to meet regularly back home for dinners and reunion stories. I can't wait. We are all doing a secret roommate swap, and every time we go on a travel break or get to a new place, we draw names randomly and get that person a small, secret gift. It has been a LOT of fun and something that we all look forward to. Mostly we get each other gag gifts, which is always good for laughs.

Lugano is a great way to end the trip before going on to our last travel break. Whitney and I are traveling to Germany and will be in Munich and Frankfurt. I'm excited about doing a Mike's Bikes tour of Munich, going to a concentration camp, and getting to go to a zoo in Frankfurt. It is four days, and I'll be with my best friend, taking pictures and making priceless memories.

Sidenote:  Lugano, while beautiful, has been my prime location for clumsy acts. I actually slammed into a glass window the other day in front of a bunch of American finance students taking class at Franklin College, which is an international college. I was mortified but it was hilarious, and the five or so people with me at the time were all crying laughing. I don't think I've laughed that hard since...well, actually, since a couple of weeks ago when I rolled out of my top bunk bed at the servi. Today we went to a church in Morcote, a small village a ferry ride away from Lugano, and I got tripped up on a bench in there, too! Then, I tripped down the million stairs back to the ferry stop.

Time for bed...I've been doing too many hours of homework and I need my sleep!

Entry 4: June 11, 2008

Hey everyone! I'm writing from a hostel in Interlaken— it's BEAUTIFUL in Switzerland and the air feels clean and crisp. Our hostel is really nice and has internet access and nice showers, etc. We're staying in a room with a bunch of our friends, so it's like a big slumber party with bunk beds! Just hope no one falls off!

Tomorrow we're going to Stechelberg and then it's off to Gimmelwald, where we will have a big hike. I'm a little nervous but I for sure am looking forward to it. Then off to Lugano, where we will spend the rest of our time before our last travel break. I can't believe it's almost time to say goodbye to Europe...but hopefully not forever. :)

Lake Como was fun...it was our travel break before getting to Switzerland, and it was such a nice way to just relax and catch up on some sleep before big traveling to Lugano. That's about all I have to report for now...it's bedtime!

Entry 3: June 6, 2008

Hello, everyone!

It has been a week since I've written, and I can't believe that since then, I've been to Venice, the most beautiful city in the world. My travel group for Venice was fabulous, and all of us had a great time trying to figure out the "vaporetti" system (those are the public water buses that Venice uses for transportation). I am just now starting to feel like I'm not still on a boat. Venice was so perfect - I can't believe that the water goes right up over the steps of most of the buildings! Our hotel was charming and served breakfast, and each day we did two events: the San Michele cemetery and the Murano glass blowing island on Tuesday, and the Basilica di San Marco and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection on Wednesday. I didn't get to go on a gondola ride, but that's okay - I'll have to save it for next time!

I can't believe that we only have three more days at the servi. On Monday, we leave for our next travel break and my group is going to Lake Como, which should be very relaxing and scenic. We are all meeting up in Lugano, where we will spend our last time together living in single rooms. Single rooms will be exciting after sharing a room with eight girls for a month, but it will also be very different and I might find myself lonely! We're over halfway done with the program, and that is the hardest to believe of everything. It has been a whirlwind so far of cultural experiences, broken Italian, exciting places, and delicious food.

I guess I will be updating more after I get back from my next travel break! Arrivederci!

Entry 2: May 29, 2008

Buenasera! It is about 7 p.m. in Italy, and we all just got back from our first travel break! I can't believe we have been here for two weeks now. Only four more to go, so I'm trying to soak in as much of Italy and Europe as I can!

Our travel break was DELIGHTFUL. Whitney and five of the other girls and I traveled together to Rome and Capri, and it was so amazing. We stayed in Rome for one night, so we didn't get to see a lot, but we did make it to the Colosseum and the Spanish steps. We tried to find the Trevi Fountain, but it was simply too late and we didn't know where we were going. The Colosseum was amazing. I kept trying to picture what it must have looked like in its prime, but there is simply no way to really get the full effect. I can't believe that it is such a bustling city now, and it used to be such a vast and impressive empire. Now all of the old buildings and ruins are still up, but there are also tourists everywhere you look and cars and buses...it's just hard to imagine it before. We have walked so much in the past few days! It's a good feeling.

The morning after we arrived in Rome, we took a train to Naples, which wasn't too bad. The taxi drive was interesting because everyone is just all over the place there. We took a hydrofoil boat ride to Capri, and as soon as I stepped onto the pier, I knew I was home...the water is clear and just like an aquamarine paradise. I felt so elated to be there, and we soaked up some sun, had some good eats, did a little bit of touristy shopping, a lot of walking, and a lot of sightseeing.

Capri is simply GORGEOUS - I honestly can't say it enough. The hotel we stayed at was so quaint and charming, and offered a full breakfast and a swimming pool! There are a lot of cats in Capri just sitting around sunbathing, which was cute. We even got to see the Blue Grotto, or the Grotto Azurra, which is a famous cave in Capri that has the most luminous and iridescent blue water imaginable, basically. It's something about the way the light reflects off of the limestone in the cave, and it was stunning. We had a lot of insalata caprese, and some ravioli alla caprese, two things that Capri is known for. I could not have asked for a more relaxing and exciting trip, and it came at just the right time, because I was starting to experience culture shock pretty bad for a day or two there. Now I am just ready to take Italy by storm!

Our journey back to Sansepolcro was long and tiring, but now we're back and I have a lot of homework and journaling to catch up on. I will write again next week, but until then, ciao!

Entry 1: May 21, 2008

Salve! Well, it has been almost one week since we arrived in Sansepolcro, and everything here is so different from home. I love it! I am experiencing a bit of culture shock today because nothing is in a language I understand, and I can't call home as much as I want at all because it is so expensive. The room that I am staying in has gotten really close and we are constantly keeping each other laughing. Everything that goes wrong gets blamed on culture shock, which is funny - Lauryn saw a snake? Culture shock! Natalie burned her bangs with the straightener and blew up her converter? Culture shock! (Sorry to call you guys out. . . haha) :)

The money situation is tricky because Euros spend like dollars, but they are worth a lot more than a dollar and so I'm trying to be frugal. We have our first travel break from Monday until Thursday, and Whitney and I are going to Rome and Capri with five other girls. I'm so excited and feel so blessed to be here because I have never really had the chance to travel before, and I know this is a once in a lifetime chance.

We have already done a lot of things since we arrived at the Servi: we went to the Compass Rose across the street, a little restaurant, and made some Italian friends! My Italian is not great, but I'm working on it. We went to see the Casa Buitoni, which was a lot of fun because it is this huge, extravagantly beautiful mansion up on a mountain that overlooks the whole city of Sansepolcro. We took a tour of the casa and then received a delectable meal. We also went to the Cattedrale (cathedral) in Sansepolcro for Catholic Mass, which was, of course, all in Italian. A cute little old woman came to sit next to us in mass and she kept talking to us in Italian, but we couldn't understand her at all. I guess it didn't bother her, because she kept talking to us anyway!

Yesterday we went to the Museo Civico, which is just the community museum here in Sansepolcro. The museo houses a lot of Piero della Francesca's works (some are Frescos painted on the walls) - he is a wonderful painter who was from Sansepolcro, and his painting of the Resurrection is said to be one of the best works of art in the world.

Tomorrow we are going to Florence as a group, which I am really excited about. It will give us all a chance to get acclimated to the bus schedule and the train system here. It will be a good warm up for our travel breaks next week, when we will not have Dr. O to tell us what to do and how to get around!

I'm off to do some homework and get sleep before waking up early tomorrow. I hope everyone in the states is doing well, and I will see all of you in about five weeks!

Ciao!
-Julia