Time is flying!

Two weeks flies by. I didn’t even think about making a blog post until it hit me earlier this week that I hadn’t done it since my Easter Europe trip.

My first five days back from my Europe trip I was still on Easter vacation but I spent most of my time in the library working on a few assignments and papers that had upcoming due dates. Brian went to Stratford-upon-Avon for half of a week so I had the room by myself which was nice. Other internationals were busy doing their own thing so I was pretty productive.

Classes and campus dining resumed on April 16 which was a joyous day – good food! Two of my classes finished at the end of March so I don’t have class on Fridays anymore. The rest of my classes will finish up next week, with assessments in later May and one on June 7. Academically, I’ve been working on essays piece by piece, making sure I don’t procrastinate like my high school writing days. Culturally I’ve set out with a few new life goals: watch the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time and listen to the top 100 albums on the Rolling Stones list. I’m on my way in the album collecting and have been harvesting as many free ones out of the Chester Uni library as possible to save for when I get back to the states.

Last weekend I did a little travelling here in the UK. On Friday the 20^th I went to Cardiff, Wales with another international student. We spent about 10 hours in the city, which is the capital of Wales. The highlight was Cardiff castle which has been remodeled multiple times giving it a keep that looks 750 years old and a residence in the fortress that looks 300 years old. After the castle we walked around Cardiff all day, making our way to the Cardiff bay, seeing Millennium stadium which is home to 2012 Olympic football (soccer), and I bought some shoes because mine are giving out from all the walking and basketball. The next day I went to Liverpool with seven others to see the "Giants" Titanic memorial event and The Beatles Story. In the evening we went to our pub for English breakfasts. Yes, I can say “our pub” in Liverpool because we’ve been there four times.

Cardiff Castle

Lord's former residence in Cardiff Castle

National Museum of Wales

"Giants" Titanic memorial event in Liverpool

Crowds for the Liverpool event

The Beatles Story

John Lennon's piano and guitar

I don’t have any travels planned for the next two weeks but you never know, something might come up! 

Swiss Cheese and French Fries

Zermatt

After our time in Italy we travelled north to Switzerland. Our first destination in Switzerland was Zermatt, a ski resort city overlooking the monstrous Matterhorn mountain. Being big on skiing, Zermatt didn’t have much to offer in terms of museums or indoor activities. But our purpose in going to Switzerland was the Swiss Alps and we spent most of our time hiking. The first day we were out hiking for about 3.5 hours and the second day around 6 hours. The legs were really feeling it when we got done! In this first Swiss stop, we discovered the expensiveness of Switzerland. Food was twice as expensive as in the states and even the trains were more expensive. The Swiss are surrounded by different languages (Italian, French, German, etc.) so signs and labels usually had at least three languages on them. One other note of Zermatt was its use of electric cars. To reduce carbon emissions and increase visibility of the mountains, you cannot drive gas powered cars in the city.

Stream that runs through Zermatt

Hiking!

Matterhorn Mountain

Vevey

In planning our trip, it made more sense to stay in southern Switzerland that to head north to cities like Basel, Bern, or Zurich. So from Zermatt we went to Vevey, a middle-sized city along Lake Geneva. Planning Vevey for one day was with the intention that it would be a city we could stop through on our way to Geneva but we found that the area has enough to spend a solid week there. The cities on the northeast side of Lake Geneva work together to give free transportation between them so Brian and I started in Vevey by leaving Vevey with a train up into wine country were we saw thousands of potential grape veins. We walked back down the mountain to Vevey and ran across the headquarters of Nestle before going east to the city of Montreux by train. From Montreux we checked out the Castle “Chillon” which is the best castle I’ve been to in Europe. We also saw statues of Freddy Mercury and Charlie Chaplain who both finished their careers along Lake Geneva in Montreux and Vevey. Vevey turned out to be my favorite city in Switzerland for it’s small size but great view of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Vevey, Switzerland

Chillon Castle

Lake Geneva with the castle over my right shoulder

Geneva

The next morning we went to Geneva which is one of the biggest cities in Switzerland. We only had a half of a day in Geneva because our train to Paris would be leaving at 4pm. I really only wanted to see some monuments and pieces to the Reformation in Geneva and  I got to all of the things I had hoped for. We saw the cathedral of St. Peter where John Calvin gave sermons and walked around the campus of the college Calvin founded. There is a massive monument with the nickname “Reformation Wall” that depicts major role players in the Reformation. We didn’t do much else in Geneva except lounge around and play giant chess in the park. We caught our 3.5 hour train ride to Paris and spent the evening of the April 5 finding our hostel from the train station and getting some sleep.

Reformer John Calvin's chair

Lunch in a park while playing giant checkers

Jet d'eau fountain in Geneva

Paris, France

The big city of Paris was a big finish to our long European vacation. Brian and I spent three full days in the city, which allowed for us to settle a little bit and buy food ahead instead of buy food day to day. On Friday the 6^th we spent the day in Europe’s most popular museum, the Louvre. When I saw “the day”, I mean it. I could’ve easily spent weeks in the maze of that museum but was limited to just over five hours. In the evening I went to the cathedral of Notre Dame for Good Friday service. The next day we followed the river east through Paris, passing by the Arc de Triomphe, the Army Museum, the Grand Palace, and the Palace de Chaillot. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and ate our packed-lunch in the Eiffel, overlooking all of Paris. To finish the day, we waiting for almost two hours to make sure we made it into Notre Dame for the Easter vigil mass. At almost three hours long, Easter vigil in French celebrated by a Cardinal (Andre Vingt-Trois) in a packed Notre Dame was unreal. Our last day, Easter Sunday, we went to the Pere Lachaise cemetery to see the graves of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Chopin, and others. An hour walk north led us to a basilica on a hill nicknamed the Paris Taj Mahal that gave us a glimpse of the city from a different perspective. To finish our last night in Paris, we laid on the grassy park gazing at the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. To fulfill the Pulp Fiction line, I ate at McDonald’s and ordered a “Royal with cheese” – a quarter pounder with cheese. Oh and French don't claim fries to be theirs. On the last day I had a crepe, the first in my life. I feel like I’ll be impartial to French crepes for the rest of my life.

Notre Dame cathedral

Does this need a caption?

I guess this one doesn't either

Outside the Lourve

To conclude the post, I thought I would share with you five things I’ve missed a lot during my Easter break travels. 

1. Family - Easter without family just feels weird and sad.

2. White's Dining - Scrounging for food everyday got tiring so campus food sounds really good. 

3. Clothes - We didn't have much room for a wardrobe so Brian and I lived off of one pair of jeans and 6 shirts each. 

4. Showers - Having clean and large showers weren't an option in hostels, and in Paris our hostel ran out of towels so Brian and I decided to go completely natural for the last four days of the trip. Don't judge me. 

5. My bed - My bed back in Goddard is amazing but sleeping on a two inch thick mattress with a pillow the size of a baby made me miss my bed back in Chester. 

But with the limitation of all of these things has come a greater appreciation for them. Showering, changing clothes, food at all, a nice bed to sleep in, and a loving family aren't common commodities to everyone in the world. This trip has shown me how blessed I am and that the little things, like a nice pillow, are never to be looked past. 

Italia!

One of the biggest highlights of the education system in England is its breaks. I had a week long “development week” in February and on March 24, I started a three week long Easter break. Over a month ago I started planning where to go for the break and with Brian as my official travel companion, we devised a 15 day trip through Italy, Switzerland, and France. As soon as we had our countries picked out, we bought plane tickets from Liverpool to Rome and our return ticket from Paris to Manchester. To navigate our way through the three countries, we bought Eurail passes so that we could just walk onto a train but in the end, they didn’t save us that much money and probably weren’t worth the hassle of having to reserve seats on trains. Then in the two weeks leading up to the trip, I used hostelbookers.com to find hostels and got that side of the travel figured out. Finally, we packed our backpacks and one carry-on suitcase and went to the Liverpool airport to begin our journey!

Rome

We arrived in Rome the night of the 24^th and spent a good hour and a half looking for our hostel. Once settled, we found a local pizzeria and took our pizzas back to the hostel to relax and sleep before our next two days in Rome. Throughout the next two days, we split up for about half of the time as I wanted to see lots of churches and the Vatican Museum and Brian wanted to see lots to do with John Keats, his favorite poet. We did meet up and walk around the Coliseum, Palatino, and the Roman Forum. All were grand reminders of Rome’s history and strength. Then next day I went to Vatican City early in the morning and walked around St. Peter’s basilica for over an hour before joining a group tour of the Vatican Museum. The museum is massive; I was told that if you spent five seconds at every object, you’d be there 12 years. Our tour guide just showed us a glimpse of the museum and my favorite sculpture in it was probably of Laocoon with his sons. The Sistine Chapel lived up to all the hype. I could stare at it for hours if I didn’t have other things to see. I also got to see tombs of dozens of popes, the place under the basilica’s alter where Peter’s remains are located, and I walked down the stairs that a pope walks down after being elected in the Sistine Chapel. I met back up with Brian and we checked out the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain on our way back for the night. In all, I probably saw the inside of at least 10 basilicas, multiple works of Michelangelo, and was able to go to mass in Italian!

The Colosseum 

Trevi Fountain

St. Peter's Basilica

Assisi

The next morning on the 26^th, we made our way to the Rome Termini train station and hopped on a two hour train for Assisi. We nearly took a massive wrong turn but luckily we ran straight into our hostel, or should I say hotel. We had our own room and bathroom, an amazing breakfast the next morning, and a view of the basilica of St. Francis out our window. Assisi is situated at the top of a hill so we did a lot of up and down-hill hiking throughout the day. The first stop was to see the basilica of St. Francis which is divided into an upper chamber and a lower chamber and below the lower chamber is a chapel containing the tomb of St. Francis. This basilica fit very perfectly with the style of city Assisi is and its art was far simpler than that of Rome’s basilicas. The rest of the day was spent seeing the town with its picturesque stone streets and buildings. We reached a highpoint in Assisi at the Rocca Maggiore, a fortress nearly 1000 years old that gave us a 360 view of the Umbrian Valley. Assisi was a very peaceful and calm city; of the Italian cities we hit, this is the one I could see myself living in.

The stone-streets of Assisi

Brian and me

St. Francis Basilica at sunset

Florence

A former economic power and the city of the Renaissance, Florence still showed its power to us in the two days we were there. Once we found our small hostel, Brian and I went to the Galleria de Academia. The museum had multiple unfinished sculptures of Michelangelo and other various artists’ works but most notably housed the 17 foot tall “David”. Needless to say, we stared at it for 30 minutes. From there we stopped at one of the world’s largest cathedrals, known as Duomo. After seeing the beautiful basilicas in Rome, the one thing that made this church stand out was its red, white, and green marble exterior. The next day we started in Galleria degli Uffizi, ranked number two in European museums and home of the world’s greatest collection of Italian Renaissance art. Prominent pieces included Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”, da Vinci’s “Annunciation”, and Michelangelo’s “Holy Family”. As if that wasn’t enough, we went to Santa Croce to see the tombs of greats like Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo. Honestly, by the end of the day, everything started to blend together and became an immense sensory overload. Another sense that was stimulated was my taste buds after enjoying authentic Italian gelato!

Ponte Vecchio bridge

Florence skyline

Gelato!

Venice

The following two days, March 30 and 31, were spent in the romanticized city of Venice. There really aren’t a lot of big attractions in Venice so we spent our days getting lost in its countless streets and canals. One perk was that it is the only pedestrian city in the world meaning there are no cars on the island. On the first day, we spent a few hours in an art gallery and checked out the basilica of St. Mark. The second day, we took a waterbus over to the island of Murano, known for making Venetian glass. Other than these three excursions, Venice was a lot of strolling around admiring the architecture and canals. Everything being expensive (for example gondolas start at about 100 euros), the sidewalks crowded being with tourists, a horrible hostel, and getting lost all the time made Venice my least favorite stop we made in Italy.

Boats!

A typical canal

Me on the island of Murano

Milan

Today we took a very early train to Milan to finish our Italy tour. We didn’t have high expectations for Milan and are used this day more to catch up on rest and do laundry than go sightseeing. Of the things we did do boiled down to eating pasta on the sidewalk of a restaurant and visiting the cathedral here. Other than those things we walked around the commercialized, shopping city of Milan then returned for our rooms for the day. I don’t think I can judge this city fairly since I didn’t see very much but being the halfway point of our 15 day trip, the break was much needed.

Lots of train rides so far!

Milan's cathedral

The big themes of Italy were churches and Michelangelo. Themes that I've very much enjoyed experiencing and learning about. I will be sure to write about the next week’s travels on a future blog post!