This will be my final post sitting at 22 Via Degli Scipion in Rome, Italy. I leave in five hours to catch a shuttle to the airport and fly out three hours later. This semester has been a whirlwind that has more memories than I can recount right now. It had its downs but was always, always overcome and outweighed by the ups. I cannot begin to describe the people I have met here, the things I have seen, and the places I have traveled. Though for the faithful readers I understand there is still a week's worth of activities to describe so let's start there first.
Finals. Everybody's favorite. Except for this guy. Fortunately they were spaced out one a day to allow each day prior to the exam to be focused on the upcoming test. The strategy worked well and seemed to have payed off. I felt good about every single one of them. Marketing took the longest but was done first on Sunday. After two hours of solid writing I closed the chapter on that class and not a moment too soon. Though I have to say, it did provide a lot of fun times and interesting events. Monday was Italian which I'm pretty sure I knocked out of the park. Being surrounded by the language makes (re)learning it even easier. Tuesday was Advertising and I completely smoked that final. The class was a blast and provide more entertainment than any class I've had thus far. Well, in the last month it did, at least. It was nice to end that class on another positive note after receiving an A+ on the advertising campaign. Wednesday was a break (more on this day later) and Thursday wrapped up the semester with a final in Management. Not my best final because, let's face it, the semester had been going on for so long and I was running out of energy that the preparation slacked for that exam. And expectedly so.
Going back in time to Wednesday. Manchester United (Enland Premiership Football {Soccer] Club) was coming into town to take on AS Roma. The week prior we bought a bunch of tickets for the game to sit on the Roma side. Those were the only ones available even though I tried to find ones for the ManU side. Game night. Everyone comes over to our place, which is on the way to the stadium, and we all load up on a bus and head on over. At this point I was still wearing my ManU scarf. The bus pulled up across the street and as soon as we stepped out we were swarmed with orange and maroon, the Roma colors, and in the distance at all surrounding intersections were armed police and riot control. We walked over to the stadium and meandered our way in, and after passing a few vocal groups along with the pleas of those around me, I took of the ManU scarf...for the time being. We went to our gate entrance and went through the turnstile. We were frisked and patted down and allowed to enter. As I passed the guard and recollected my ticket he looked down and noticed red peeking out of my jacket. He looked at me and asked, "english? Manchester?" I said no we got the tickets for Roma side but was it possible to sit on the ManU side. After gathering up Ashley, Whit, Meg, and Abbie we were led to a steel dividing wall and ushered through. On the other side we were met by thirty or so riot police to be frisked yet again. An attendant pointed us down the walkway and we just kind of followed it. We wound up walking into the middle of the Manchester United side and found any available spot in the area. What a game! Surrounded by boisterous englishmen who we could actually understand, chanting the whole game, and staying fairly warm it was definitely european soccer at its finest. Until the end. The game ended with a 1-1 draw but that didn't matter because both teams had qualified for the next round in the Champions League. It was then that we were informed the ManU fans were required to wait a minimum of half an hour before exiting the stadium. Note: Italian soccer has become somewhat of a questionable endevour. Opposing fans have found themselves harassed, beaten, and in more recent events injured and killed. No other country has problems like this. Apparently in Italian everything really is just that much crazier than the rest of Europe. End note. So, after half an hour we shuffle out of the stadium only to be guided by a large amount of riot police to a line of a dozen buses. We filed onto them and were police escorted out of the stadium, through Villa Borghese, and back into town at Termini. The whole way every two busses were broken up by two vans carrying armed police. Arriving at Termini we were met with over 60 riot control police with 8 armored vehicles. Nothing transpired and we loaded up on the bus to take us back over to our side of town and end the night studying for a final. I've heard of rivalries, and I've heard of fan hostility, but this by far surpasses anything else I've experienced. What an adventure.
The past three days afterwards have been a blur. Thursday was a perfect day with final sight seeing and shopping through Rome. There was a trip to the Spanish Steps with Godiva hot chocolate and wandering around back down Via del Corso. The Christmas Market in Piazza Navona was in full swing. Dinner at Mario's Osteria. And a final trip past St. Peter's Square and the Vatican Wall going home. Friday I awoke in a daze and couldn't quite believe that the trip was over, people were already flying back home, and I still had to pack. So I spent most of the day packing up the apartment. Turned in my cell phone leaving me isolated for a day and a half. Troy and I met up with the girls and we all headed to Campo di Fiori one last time with pretty much everyone else that was still in town. That was a fun night to see everyone after finals and just kind of relax and joke around. Saturday, today, we grabbed a final lunch at Carlomentas, strolled the streets near Trevi and the Pantheon, finished packing the apartment, and went for dinner one last time at the girls' place. It was only fitting that we end the semester eating a self-cooked (self meaing the girls while Troy and I provided encouragement) meal, playing cards, watching a movie, and just relaxing around to music.
I know it's a short post for a final one. Those of you that were here and read this know everything that I could possibly type. And those that weren't will undoubtedbly hear the stories in the coming weeks. So, after four months of calling Rome home...it's time to publish the blog and head back stateside. Ciao!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Q: What's the Worst Thing about Berlin?
A: Having to leave.
With that said, let me begin my blog. You may notice the time. If not, I'll fill you in. It's currently 2:36 (that's in the a.m.) here in the city of 2 for 1. Why am I up at this hour? Simple. I have to leave the hostel at 4 to get to the airport to catch my flight back home to Rome. If you know me, and know how I like to sleep, you'll understand that by the time we got back to the hostel and packed our bags for the trip back home and chatted with the guys that are working the nightshift it was closing in on 1 in the morning, and that means that it's safer for me to stay up a few more hours than to risk falling asleep and overshooting the alarm, let alone the flight.
Besides, I have nothing planned tomorrow so it's occupied with sleep. Also, if you're wondering about the flights and why they always seem so early I'll give you a description of european discout air travel. First, the number one rule is that the cheapest flights are at the least convenient times. So when you put in your search for flights leaving (for example) Rome headed to Berlin, you get three options: Flight X leaving at 7:15 for 34euro, Flight Y leaving at 10:45 (more preferable time) for 85euro (less preferable price), or Flight Z leaving at 2:50 (way too late to be leaving and still get any sight seeing done that day thus turning a two day trip into just a day trip) for 115euro (at this point the price is laughable). Obviously in the nature of being border line broke college students and generally making foolish choices we always opt for the least expensive priced flight at the earliest time...and then proceed to stay up all night to catch it. Another important factor to calculate is which discount airline. The frontrunners in Europe are RyanAir (representing cattle calls at 10 to 1 odds of cancellation everywhere) or EasyJet (representing efficiency at a low budget, but something about a solid orange plane weirds me out). It never fails in this process that some flights will be cancelled while others will be overbooked. Nobody knows how this is selected. I prefer to think they lay out all the possible flights for a day on a bulletin board, and then proceed to take turns throwing darts at the wall to fill up their quota of needed flights to make profit without having to expend too much effort. Bottom line: cheap flights are the best, cheap flights are very early in the morning, and cheap flights are very unreliable. But they're better than the main airlines.
Moving on to Berlin. I caught a few hours of sleep and woke up early to grab the metro to the train station. I had to do this because the national transportation strike for buses, metro and tram was scheduled to start at 8:30. At the train station I caught a bus to Ciampino airport to catch my flight where the national transportation strike for airlines was scheduled to start at 11:00. My flight was schedule to leave at 9:45. No problem. I check in, go through security (where, yet again, I had to throw away some toiletry item that didn't meet this particular airport's requirements-they change airport to airport) then go to the gate. A notice informs me the flight is delayed in arrival and won't take off until 10:45, 15 minutes before said strike. *^@& After an hour of intense reading/scanning the board to see if the flight was scrapped all together, the workers showed up and allowed us to make our way to the plane. I touched down in Berlin an hour later than anticipated, but Denton, being such a good friend, was there waiting anyway. He then, like I now, had pulled an all nighter to catch the flight in time so he was taking a nap during the extra hour wait...what's an extra hour to him other than a good thing?
We got on board the S-bahn and took the train into the city and followed the directions to the hostel. JETpak hostel it's called. This place is better than most hotels I've seen over here. The location is a bit out of the central area, but the U-bahn is right next door and takes you there in a matter of 10 minutes. We had 2 beds in a 6 bed room. One bed was occupied by a guy, Todd, who works at the hostel and took up night duty shifts while we were here. The other three were empty. It was like having a room to ourselves which is better than having a room with people coming in at all hours of the night. The three bathrooms on our floor were clean. And when I say clean, I don't mean international travel hostel type clean. I mean spotless like a mom cleaning after her child had a contageous illness clean. Not to mention of the bathrooms has a shower right out of a luxury magazine. It has the typical nozzle, an overhead nozzle to shower directly down, and 6 jets to come in on the sides. It was like a car wash, but for a person. Easily the best hostel there is to stay at in Europe.
After dumping our bags off we went exploring the city. I heard Christmas time in Germany was great. I wasn't prepared for exactly how great it was. The main areas in the city were covered in Christmas lights. There are five major Christmas markets complete with food vendors, specialty items, games and other assorted things. We popped our heads out of a U-bahn station and across the street was one of these markets. We strolled through and came across an artifical snow hill for sledding. 1.50 euro later we had our tubes and were walking up to the top...along with the other 5-10 year olds. Who cares. It was a hill and we were going to sled down it. We went on up to Brandenburg Gate and started walking down the main street. It was lined with trees and buildings covered in Christmas lights. Also nestled in the buildings were there Ferrarri dealership and the Bentley dealership. (I was suddenly inspired to begin my Christmas wish list ;). We came across another Christmas market and walked through that one. There we grabbed a traditional German brautwurst. What better to wash it down with than a cup of Gluhwein. Gluhwein is hot red wine with cinnamon and cloves. They make you pay a few euro more as a deposit for the glasses, but everyone ends up taking them as souveniers. We walked down a little ways and noticed another Christmas market, but this one was joined to a carnival. So, of course, being the mature college aged adults we are immediately ran to the roller coaster followed by the bumper cars and finished off with a crepe. We crossed over Museum Island and into Alexanderplatz. There we encountered yet another Christmas market, as well as a five story department store. We ended up going to the top of the TV tower (aka, the Death Start) and had dinner at a revolving restaurant 426 meters above ground. Oh, and the beer? The world's got nothin' on Germany.
Saturday I woke (very, very early local time) to a text saying rumor had it base locations were out. A few hours later Denton and I woke up and sent an email in to confirm the rumors. We gathered ourselves together and headed out to Brandenburg Gate to meet up with our, get this, FREE tour. The motto of the FreeBerlin tour: "Because the best tours in life are free". They lived up to it. Our guide was a quirky but humorous guy named Patrick who took us around the city showing all the significant sights. Brandenburg Gate, Parliament, Holocaust Memorial, Hitler's Bunker, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, chocolate factory, Concert Hall, Frederich the Great's library where the Nazi book burning was held, the Opera House, and Museum Island. I'm sure there are more but I'll have to go back through my pictures to refresh my memory. (Those will hopefully be posted to facebook in a day or so) We then headed over to the Pergamon Museum and checked out those exhibits there which included the actual gates to the Babylonian Empire. Pretty cool I thought. We strolled through a Christmas market to do a bit of shopping and grab some more bratwursts. *backtracking: the tour company and Schlotsky's apparently have a partnership where they bring the tours in for a lunch break and the store lets them do free advertising. we weren't complaining because it's the first place I've been in Europe that had an ice machine and free refrills. Again, Berlin is amazing.* We then headed back over to Zoo Garten and into the last Christmas Market. After strolling through there we headed down into Pa Di We which is the second largest luxury department store in Europe behind Harrod's. This thing was incredible. Every floor was massive and covered in designer clothes, or shoes. One floor was for electronics and toys which took a while to get through. Believe me, staring at flat screen and playing with legos and train sets can take up some time. And the next to top floor was their famous food market with some amazing stuff. We were walking around taking in the sights when from across the way I saw a logo that I could recognize anywhere in the world...Dr. Pepper! Shipped to Berlin, Germany from Plano, Texas. At 2euro (roughly 3.50USD to a can) it was a done deal. At this point in the semester, 10euro for a Dr. Pepper isn't too outrageous. So, we left the store and on our way back to the hostel to drop off our purchases I enjoyed a nice can of Dr. Pepper that tasted every bit as good as I had imagined it being. We had been on our feet nonstop for nearly 11 hours so we took a breather at the hostel before heading back to the Christmas market to tank up on bratwursts, sauteed mushrooms, sishkabobs (sp?), crepes and Gluhwein. Of course you can't do that without adding another purchase or two which made our night even better.
That, in a very brief nutshell and without any justice done to the marvel of this city, was our trip to Berlin. This by far has been the best excursion throughout the semester and fast becoming one of my favorite cities in the world, and definitely one on the list to visit again and a bit more in depth. It's now 3:30 and I have a few articles to check on espn before heading on out to the airport to check in for the flight.
To end the entry, upon our returning to the hostel we checked our email where we both found an email in our inbox from Col. Leonard. The contents of which had our home for the next few years. I was surprised with mine, but pleasantly okay with it. I'm always up for an adventure and this will provide me with plenty. Want to know? Well, it's __________. Like I'm going to tell the general public before my own parents. I'll inform you all tomorrow after I inform them. Deal? Deal.
With that said, let me begin my blog. You may notice the time. If not, I'll fill you in. It's currently 2:36 (that's in the a.m.) here in the city of 2 for 1. Why am I up at this hour? Simple. I have to leave the hostel at 4 to get to the airport to catch my flight back home to Rome. If you know me, and know how I like to sleep, you'll understand that by the time we got back to the hostel and packed our bags for the trip back home and chatted with the guys that are working the nightshift it was closing in on 1 in the morning, and that means that it's safer for me to stay up a few more hours than to risk falling asleep and overshooting the alarm, let alone the flight.
Besides, I have nothing planned tomorrow so it's occupied with sleep. Also, if you're wondering about the flights and why they always seem so early I'll give you a description of european discout air travel. First, the number one rule is that the cheapest flights are at the least convenient times. So when you put in your search for flights leaving (for example) Rome headed to Berlin, you get three options: Flight X leaving at 7:15 for 34euro, Flight Y leaving at 10:45 (more preferable time) for 85euro (less preferable price), or Flight Z leaving at 2:50 (way too late to be leaving and still get any sight seeing done that day thus turning a two day trip into just a day trip) for 115euro (at this point the price is laughable). Obviously in the nature of being border line broke college students and generally making foolish choices we always opt for the least expensive priced flight at the earliest time...and then proceed to stay up all night to catch it. Another important factor to calculate is which discount airline. The frontrunners in Europe are RyanAir (representing cattle calls at 10 to 1 odds of cancellation everywhere) or EasyJet (representing efficiency at a low budget, but something about a solid orange plane weirds me out). It never fails in this process that some flights will be cancelled while others will be overbooked. Nobody knows how this is selected. I prefer to think they lay out all the possible flights for a day on a bulletin board, and then proceed to take turns throwing darts at the wall to fill up their quota of needed flights to make profit without having to expend too much effort. Bottom line: cheap flights are the best, cheap flights are very early in the morning, and cheap flights are very unreliable. But they're better than the main airlines.
Moving on to Berlin. I caught a few hours of sleep and woke up early to grab the metro to the train station. I had to do this because the national transportation strike for buses, metro and tram was scheduled to start at 8:30. At the train station I caught a bus to Ciampino airport to catch my flight where the national transportation strike for airlines was scheduled to start at 11:00. My flight was schedule to leave at 9:45. No problem. I check in, go through security (where, yet again, I had to throw away some toiletry item that didn't meet this particular airport's requirements-they change airport to airport) then go to the gate. A notice informs me the flight is delayed in arrival and won't take off until 10:45, 15 minutes before said strike. *^@& After an hour of intense reading/scanning the board to see if the flight was scrapped all together, the workers showed up and allowed us to make our way to the plane. I touched down in Berlin an hour later than anticipated, but Denton, being such a good friend, was there waiting anyway. He then, like I now, had pulled an all nighter to catch the flight in time so he was taking a nap during the extra hour wait...what's an extra hour to him other than a good thing?
We got on board the S-bahn and took the train into the city and followed the directions to the hostel. JETpak hostel it's called. This place is better than most hotels I've seen over here. The location is a bit out of the central area, but the U-bahn is right next door and takes you there in a matter of 10 minutes. We had 2 beds in a 6 bed room. One bed was occupied by a guy, Todd, who works at the hostel and took up night duty shifts while we were here. The other three were empty. It was like having a room to ourselves which is better than having a room with people coming in at all hours of the night. The three bathrooms on our floor were clean. And when I say clean, I don't mean international travel hostel type clean. I mean spotless like a mom cleaning after her child had a contageous illness clean. Not to mention of the bathrooms has a shower right out of a luxury magazine. It has the typical nozzle, an overhead nozzle to shower directly down, and 6 jets to come in on the sides. It was like a car wash, but for a person. Easily the best hostel there is to stay at in Europe.
After dumping our bags off we went exploring the city. I heard Christmas time in Germany was great. I wasn't prepared for exactly how great it was. The main areas in the city were covered in Christmas lights. There are five major Christmas markets complete with food vendors, specialty items, games and other assorted things. We popped our heads out of a U-bahn station and across the street was one of these markets. We strolled through and came across an artifical snow hill for sledding. 1.50 euro later we had our tubes and were walking up to the top...along with the other 5-10 year olds. Who cares. It was a hill and we were going to sled down it. We went on up to Brandenburg Gate and started walking down the main street. It was lined with trees and buildings covered in Christmas lights. Also nestled in the buildings were there Ferrarri dealership and the Bentley dealership. (I was suddenly inspired to begin my Christmas wish list ;). We came across another Christmas market and walked through that one. There we grabbed a traditional German brautwurst. What better to wash it down with than a cup of Gluhwein. Gluhwein is hot red wine with cinnamon and cloves. They make you pay a few euro more as a deposit for the glasses, but everyone ends up taking them as souveniers. We walked down a little ways and noticed another Christmas market, but this one was joined to a carnival. So, of course, being the mature college aged adults we are immediately ran to the roller coaster followed by the bumper cars and finished off with a crepe. We crossed over Museum Island and into Alexanderplatz. There we encountered yet another Christmas market, as well as a five story department store. We ended up going to the top of the TV tower (aka, the Death Start) and had dinner at a revolving restaurant 426 meters above ground. Oh, and the beer? The world's got nothin' on Germany.
Saturday I woke (very, very early local time) to a text saying rumor had it base locations were out. A few hours later Denton and I woke up and sent an email in to confirm the rumors. We gathered ourselves together and headed out to Brandenburg Gate to meet up with our, get this, FREE tour. The motto of the FreeBerlin tour: "Because the best tours in life are free". They lived up to it. Our guide was a quirky but humorous guy named Patrick who took us around the city showing all the significant sights. Brandenburg Gate, Parliament, Holocaust Memorial, Hitler's Bunker, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, chocolate factory, Concert Hall, Frederich the Great's library where the Nazi book burning was held, the Opera House, and Museum Island. I'm sure there are more but I'll have to go back through my pictures to refresh my memory. (Those will hopefully be posted to facebook in a day or so) We then headed over to the Pergamon Museum and checked out those exhibits there which included the actual gates to the Babylonian Empire. Pretty cool I thought. We strolled through a Christmas market to do a bit of shopping and grab some more bratwursts. *backtracking: the tour company and Schlotsky's apparently have a partnership where they bring the tours in for a lunch break and the store lets them do free advertising. we weren't complaining because it's the first place I've been in Europe that had an ice machine and free refrills. Again, Berlin is amazing.* We then headed back over to Zoo Garten and into the last Christmas Market. After strolling through there we headed down into Pa Di We which is the second largest luxury department store in Europe behind Harrod's. This thing was incredible. Every floor was massive and covered in designer clothes, or shoes. One floor was for electronics and toys which took a while to get through. Believe me, staring at flat screen and playing with legos and train sets can take up some time. And the next to top floor was their famous food market with some amazing stuff. We were walking around taking in the sights when from across the way I saw a logo that I could recognize anywhere in the world...Dr. Pepper! Shipped to Berlin, Germany from Plano, Texas. At 2euro (roughly 3.50USD to a can) it was a done deal. At this point in the semester, 10euro for a Dr. Pepper isn't too outrageous. So, we left the store and on our way back to the hostel to drop off our purchases I enjoyed a nice can of Dr. Pepper that tasted every bit as good as I had imagined it being. We had been on our feet nonstop for nearly 11 hours so we took a breather at the hostel before heading back to the Christmas market to tank up on bratwursts, sauteed mushrooms, sishkabobs (sp?), crepes and Gluhwein. Of course you can't do that without adding another purchase or two which made our night even better.
That, in a very brief nutshell and without any justice done to the marvel of this city, was our trip to Berlin. This by far has been the best excursion throughout the semester and fast becoming one of my favorite cities in the world, and definitely one on the list to visit again and a bit more in depth. It's now 3:30 and I have a few articles to check on espn before heading on out to the airport to check in for the flight.
To end the entry, upon our returning to the hostel we checked our email where we both found an email in our inbox from Col. Leonard. The contents of which had our home for the next few years. I was surprised with mine, but pleasantly okay with it. I'm always up for an adventure and this will provide me with plenty. Want to know? Well, it's __________. Like I'm going to tell the general public before my own parents. I'll inform you all tomorrow after I inform them. Deal? Deal.
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