Journeyproud.

Today is going to be crazy. It kind of already has been. I got up extra early this morning, had a cappuccino downstairs (our coffee guy now knows we like cinnamon in our cappuccinos, so we don't even have to ask anymore. win.), and walked to school. It took me a full half hour to check in for all my flights for fall break. Apparently RyanAir's check-in process isn't exactly streamlined. By the time 8:50 rolled around it was time to head to class, but after 10 minutes of sitting there we find out from the weird kid (who somehow has the prof's phone number) that class is canceled. So after another hour of somewhat frenzied planning and booking and reserving, I'm now sitting on the roof terrace of AUR and sort of studying for my Italian midterm this afternoon. My history class was canceled for today too, but I actually had prior warning from that professor. On the bright side, I'm excited for fall break. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Barcelona, then Dublin, then London. I'm meeting up with old friends in all three cities, so I'm really excited. There was a slight crisis last night during which I tried to check in for my Barcelona flight only to find out that somehow my payment hadn't gone through and I didn't have a reservation at all. So $200 later, I now have the flight I thought I had in the first place and the day was saved.

Anyways, I won't be posting much (if at all) this next week, but I'll keep a journal while I'm traveling so I won't forget anything and will have TONS to blog about when I get back next Sunday. Let the adventures begin.

Currywurst.

One last glimpse of Berlin. No words necessary.

Ich bin ein Berliner.

East Side Gallery.

   I'm tired. Berlin was really cool, but damn if it didn't wear me out. We were only there for two days since Alex and I both have really busy weeks coming up -- I'm just two midterms and one art class away from fall break. Although after this weekend, the prospect of 10 days of travel (Barcelona, Dublin and London) seems rather daunting. Oh first world problems. So yes - Berlin was cool. I'm not sure what I was expecting it to be like, but it definitely wasn't like any other city I've seen so far. Come to think of it, we booked this trip so last minute and last week was so crazy that I don't even think I had time to form any expectations. I just sort of found myself in Berlin at 1 a.m. Friday morning.

 Our hotel was an awesome bargain - only 68 euros apiece for three nights. It was in a quiet neighborhood, very close to a main metro stop. But I swear the moment we stepped into our room we went straight back to 1975. Specifically, a yacht from 1975. Picture blue carpeting, dark wood panelling around the beds, a dark wooden ceiling in the tiny (although private - such a luxury) bathroom and a super old school TV, radio, and bedside lamp. The overall effect was unmistakable, if at first a little sketchy.
The hallway on our floor didn't have lights for some reason, so it was hard not to think of all the horror movies that start with a dark hotel corridor, but after the first night it was more funny than frightening. Thank God for iPhone flashlight apps, though. Overall the place was nice enough for two poor college students, even if we did keep our socks on at all times. But there were clean sheets and the beds were pretty comfy, so I was satisfied. It's not like we spent any real time there anyway. We spent most of the trip in museums, walking to museums, or taking the underground to museum. There are a lot of really great things about Berlin, but their public transportation system is the best of all. Having an underground system that was easy for (urban-challenged) people like me to understand AND ran on time made the trip so much better. We were only there for two days, so we didn't have time to be lost or confused like we constantly are in Rome. Additionally, Berliners seem to have a much better sense of appropriate personal space than Romans. That was nice.
                                   
Our Berlin weekend was dominated by museums. The city has a million of them, so we only made it to a tiny percentage - the Pergamon Museum, the Neues National Gallery (which was sadly under construction), the Jewish Museum, and the East Side Gallery (which is really just a stretch of wall, but it counts). The Pergamon Museum was really cool because there was a temporary installation that was this huge panorama of what the ancient metropolis looked like. Their permanent exhibition has thousands of artifacts and statues and a huge altar that they've reconstructed inside the museum, so you can see it, walk on it, sit on it and feel like an ancient Pergamonian. Sort of. It was also nice because the ticket lady gave Alex and me the student discount even though one of us (not me) forgot our student ID. 

The Jewish Museum was really good too, even though we only had about two hours to see it. It was especially interesting for me after taking a Jewish history class at Rice last spring, so I could actually make connections and learn something instead of just walking around and looking at stuff like I usually do in museums. The one downfall of the Jewish Museum is its architecture. Really cool to look at from the outside, but there were a lot of zig zags and turns and the exits weren't clearly labeled, so it was like trying to get out of a maze. 
Saturday morning we took the metro out to the East Side Gallery, my second favorite part of the whole trip. The "gallery" is a stretch of the Berlin wall that's just under a mile long that's been painted by all these different artists. It was so nice to just stroll along the wall on a cold morning, drinking coffee and looking at some really cool art. We ate our blueberry muffins at a pleasant spot along the river and Alex even got her passport stamped a little shop (since they never stamp your passport at airports anymore). 
My favorite part of the trip was finally meeting Gudrun, my Aunt Pam's friend who I've been hearing about my whole life. She lives up to the hype. She and her family had us over for "kaffeeklatsch," which including coffee, cakes, and conversation. It was so pleasant to sit in their adorable house in a quiet part of East Berlin (that looked like it could have been West U in Houston) and just talk. Gudrun and her husband Hansjorg both speak English really well, and their children (who are only 8 and 11) are also well on their way to being fluent already. The thing that struck me most was a lot of the similarities between Gudrun and Pam, which made me like her that much more. Her intelligence, her huge garden, and the books that were scattered all over her house all reminded me of my aunt. We ended the evening by taking a walk to a little castle nearby, and it was nice to walk outside without the chaos that you get in Rome. 
Alex and I went straight to bed after Gudrun drove us back to our hotel, but the combination of caffeine and stress over getting to the airport alone the next morning kept me up all night. I may have gotten 30 minutes of sleep. Maybe. So by the time 4 a.m. rolled around, I was just ready to get up and go. We checked out, called two separate cabs and were on our way. I still feel really stupid for not realizing we book flights out of different airports. The best part was that Alex's flight was 50 dollars cheaper and HER flight left on time. Mine was delayed an hour and a half for pretty much no reason. So by the time I got back to the apartment it was noon. Such is the life of a jet-setting study abroad student I guess. I did wake up on the plane long enough to snap a picture of the alps, though. That was a cheerful little moment.

More from the East Side Gallery:

these are a few of my favorite things

I haven't had a bad tomato since I've been in Italy. They are always perfect.

And they make perfect pizzas like this one.

Dark chocolate and mint gelato in old Trastevere at night. 

Water fountains all over the city that run with cold water from one of the surrounding mountains.

The view from the terrace at AUR where I eat lunch every day.

Art that actually speaks to people like me who don't understand art.

snuffles talks soccer.

Somehow, despite excessive amounts of Vitamin C and positive thinking, I've managed to get sick. I'm a little stressed out about Berlin (by the way, I'm going to Berlin tomorrow) and school, and I'm just plain tired, so motivation to blog has been hard to come by these past two days. I have a philosophy midterm tomorrow which should be interesting. And I realized this morning that Alex and I booked different flights coming back to Rome from Berlin early Sunday morning. They both leave at 7:15am, just at different airports. Oh boy.

[Sidebar]: Apparently my body thinks it's funny to get sick the day AFTER I make a delicious pot of hot chicken soup. What the hell, man.











In older news, the Roma vs Lazio game was insane. Stadio Olimpico was packed, and the entire experience was unlike any sporting event you will ever attend in the United States. First of all, history major Liz was going crazy over all the fascist statues and symbols around the outside of the stadium - pretty much talking Alex's ear off until I realized she really didn't give a crap. Also, the stadium was big, but not as big as I had expected, so we had a surprisingly good view of the pitch. The ultra - and even the regular fans - definitely lived up to their reputations. They were lighting things on fire, setting off smoke bombs, and throwing things at the field when the game took a turn for the worse. (Fun fact: in Italy, whistling is the preferred method of expressing disapproval. I was so confused at first as to why the Roma fans were whistling for Lazio, but then I figured out whistling is like booing. Weird.) I really wish I spoke more Italian so I could understand/join in with their songs and chants. Although I did find myself gesturing like an Italian by the end of the first half and yelling Italian profanities at the ref. What can I say? It's fun.

We also had an interesting halftime experience when the bald Italian man sitting in front of us (and his son and daughters and eventually everyone else in our little section) took an interest in the American girls and started trying to play matchmaker between Alex and what we believed to be a Hungarian boy. Between our limited Italian and everyone else's limited English, the only words we deciphered were "atomic bomb" and "top-shelf chocolate." Although in hindsight that really doesn't make much sense.

We didn't stay to the end of the game, since getting caught in a mob of angry Roma fans - one that was about to clash with a bunch of celebrating Lazio fans - didn't seem like the best idea for us. On the bright side, we got to ride on uncrowded metro lines, had time to stop for gelato during our hike down Via del Corso, and were in bed by midnight. Baby's first Serie A match = Success.

  

Derby della Capitale

peace, love, and chocolate.

Umbria.

Rome was on fire yesterday. A bunch of morons decided to protest capitalism or something, and it got violent - riot police were firing tear gas, buildings and cars were on fire, people were generally just going crazy. It's all incredibly stupid. It actually pisses me off a lot, but what can you do? Luckily we already had plans to take a day trip to the chocolate festival in Perugia yesterday, so we weren't even in town when all this went down. The festival was fun. It was a good last day of Ian's visit, even though I already miss having him here. I guess I have to get back to reality now, even if my reality (being in Rome, traveling every weekend, etc.) still doesn't feel real.

 Perugia is about three hours away by train, and Italian transportation is stupid, so even if you paid for your ticket and followed all the rules, you may still have to stand for the entire three hours like we did. Contrary to popular belief, I am a very patient person most of the time, so it wasn't actually too bad. The region of Umbria is beautiful and the weather was windy and cold. It was kind of a nice change from Rome, which is just beginning to cool down a little. The festival was a lot bigger than I had expected. There were vendors and tents everywhere selling and giving out samples of chocolate in every form imaginable. We tried everything from chocolate-covered fruit and chocolate muffins to chocolate cream cheese and chocolate salami. We headed back to Rome around 2:30, and it took us a while to get back. We thought we'd just jump on the next train we saw, which we did, and when the conductor checked our tickets and saw we were on the wrong train, he gave us the option of staying onboard and paying the difference and getting kicked off at the next stop and waiting for our actual train. For some reason, we chose the latter option, so we didn't get back until around 9:30. Oops.

Not that I would know or anything, but these were delicious.

Disappointed Bentley. Free muffin = tiny muffin.

Truffles. 

Sausage and grilled vege sandwich - the perfect antidote to a chocolate OD.