Paris!

Paris, France

Mile Count: 1,346

Thursday, November 17:  We got there late Thursday night, arrived at our hotel (which was more like a hostel and management immediately hated us because we were American/college students) and just walked around for a bit.  Tired from a long day of travel, we crashed pretty early and woke up at 8 the next morning to start our adventures through Paris.

Friday, November 18:  We woke up, had a lack-luster breakfast where the only good thing was croissants.  We walked about 5 minutes to the metro, and took that to a central point in the Touristy center of Paris.  From there we walked passed Notre Dam, and to the Sainte Chapel.

Group outside of ND

The buildings honestly are not that impressive from the outside, but when we got to the inside of the first chapel and up to the second floor, it was AMAZING.  The entire room was a panel of 14 stained glass windows, with each window telling a story of a different book of the bible.  This was one of the many times I have wished I had a better camera, the room was so huge I couldn't zoom out enough to get a good view.

Nuts

4 wide, 15 high.  Read bottom to top left to right.

As you can see, each window was divided into 4 columns, with each column having 15 mini scenes in it.  You read the columns from bottom to top, left to right, like the form of a snake.  It was a cloudy day (as is the norm in Paris apparently), but the glass was still incredible, and it was really cool to see.  Even cooler and pretty unbelievable, this chapel once held the Crown of Thorns that Jesus wore on the day he was crucified, but it is no longer there, I forget where it is thought to be currently. 

From there we went inside Notre Dam: neat but I am officially burnt out on cathedrals.  Almost every single one we have seen is of Gothic architecture with the same huge columns throught and “x” shaped ceiling supports so that the churches could be built bigger and with larger domes.

Notre Dame from the inside

After that, we had free time for lunch, where we went for cheap and fast...and got these huge Kabaabs with chicken and fries and tomatoes – delishh.  

ohh yeahh

After lunch we walked along the river which was sweet.  The street vendors all had their art work out – from paintings, to photos, to prints, to pottery – they had it all.  I love random stuff like that, so I sort of lagged behind and looked for cool things to buy, with definite success.  

Street vendors!

Seih!

It was just so great to be walking along the river in Paris on a cloudy day, I felt very French...(I like feeling American better if anyone was wondering, love you dad!)  We arrived at the Musuem d´ Orsay, where all of the famous impressionist and neoimpressionist artwork is.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, but impressionism was definitely something else – very interesting how those artists could take what they saw and distort it into a blurry yet beautiful work of art.  We were free to go after the Orsay....let the walking begin. 

We tried and failed to find the Effeil Tower (don’t ask me how, but were further away than we thought).  I did manage to get a freakin’ GORGEOUS picture of it at night with clouds and susnet when it was lit-up, I’m convinced this could be a post card or something.

Boo-yah

7pm rolled around, and it got COLD.  Tim and I decided it was time to find a bar to occupy our time.  I had already talked to Thibaut, my Dad’s super nice old business associate and family friend, about meeting up for dinner when he got back into Paris from Rome.  We found the best little place:  “The Highlander”

Heaven in Paris

We walked in and heard the bartender speaking perfect english, a perfect start.  We then realized it was happy hour, score.  We then realized there was free wifi, and a college basketball game on – Tim and Aj: 4, Paris: 0.  

We ended up staying there till about 9:30 when Thibaut got back into town, then met up with him and had probably the best meal I have had thus far in Europe.  I cannot say enough about how great of a guy he is: he made the reservation, paid for the meal, and took us around to see some sights after dinner.  I was so happy/excited/content that I totally forgot to take any pictures, but it was an authentically tiny French restaurant that didn’t seat more than 15 people.  We had fou Grouis with a poached egg and cheese to start.  Tim had this duck,potatoe, cheese, cream cassarole thing, I had a bread crumb crusted cut of veal that was awesome, and Thibaut got this huge leg of lamb – it was INCREDIBLY GOOD.  Big shout out to Thibaut, we owe you a good dinner next time you come to the states, thank you so much!!  Full and content after seeing some sights, we went home and crashed.

Saturday, November 20:  Saturday we woke up bright and early again to hit the Luvre.  The glass pyramid right outside is really cool, very very neat that the bottom part is self sustaining and not grounded into anything.

The sheer size of this museum is absolutely ridiculous.  Here is a view of it from the Eiffel Tower, a probably 4 or 5 miles away at least.  

Massive.

Jesús, who is our program coordinater and takes us around all of these museums and explains them to us was very sick, so we didn’t hear much explaining, but he took us around to all the major points: the mona lisa, the headless angel, and some others.  Everyone knows what the mona lisa looks like, so I'm not going to post a picture.   I personally preferred the art of the Orsay to any art I have seen, although the Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing, I just like the impressionist stuff the best.  We walked around the Luvre for about 2 more hours, and what people don't know is there is the CODE OF HAMMURABI.  An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth - it was SO cool to see this.

up close and personal

Hammurabi was the man

From their we got lunch, which was my first Falafel experience, and a great one at that.  Then we went to the Eiffel Tower, which doesn't look all that great from afar quite honestly, but up close it is very very neat.  The architecture is intricate, and it apparently was supposed to be temporary when it was built for the World Fair whenever that was, I can't remember the year.  Here are some awesome pictures:

awesome awesome

Pretty clear day in Paris.

Saturday night a few of us went out to some bars, but it's very expensive to go out at night in Paris, so we didn't do very much and it wasn't all that exciting.  That's it for Paris, hope ya'll liked it!

Blog about the week with Mindy to come sometime soon!

Reggio Di Calabria

November 2:  After a LONG day of Vatican City, metros, buses, and planes we finally arrived in Reggio about 10:40pm on Wed. night.  We hop in the car with Tanner’s cousin Cailyn, and her Italian friend Saso (that’s how you pronounce his name, not how you spell it, I have no idea how to spell it).  Within five minutes, I foundo out that he knows some of my friends who studied in Reggio this past summer, SMALL WORLD!  He is currently dating one of Cailyn’s two roommates.  Tanner and I were starving, so we dropped our bags at Cailyn’s apartment and went to get some food. 

Home sweet home for the week

Kitchen

I didn’t take a picture of the restaurant, which was unfortunate because it was my favorite pizza in all of Italy.  One side was mozzarela, parm, and ham; and the other side was spicy proccuto and cheese.  They also served us these potato wedge type fries with sauteed mushrooms on them, deliciouss.  

parm on the left, spicy meat on the right

After a third of that pizza and a beer, Tanner and I were comatose, so we went back, had some canolies, and crashed.

November 3:  We just got the tour around Reggio for our first day there.  Tanner’s cousin plays professional volleyball in Italy, so they had stuff to do in the morning – which meant Tan man and I finally got to sleep in till around eleven, it was great!.  We woke up and headed down to the beach with a sheet and a few beers.  

Awesome beach! Rocky, not sandy

The town is nothing to write home about, but the aura of it and just the atmopshere were awesome – everyone said it is 10x better in the summer, which I definitely believe, but it was still a blast.  We stopped at Sottozzero, a famous gelato place to get this gelato called “flavor de Sicilia” and it was the best ice cream I have ever tasted.  

Flavor di Sicilia!

It had thinly sliced postaccios in it, but aside from that I don`t have any idea how to describe the flavor, it was unlike anything I have ever tasted, but teeming with flavor.  It was right on the beach, so we took our gelato to the boardwalk and then just hung out on the beach for a few hours.  On our walk back we passed the “travelator” as they had nick-named it.  It was literally an escalator for the street, pretty odd but neat.  We also walked by the oldest building in Reggio, the only building to survive the massive 1908 earthquake that struck the south of Italy.  

"Travelator"

Old castle

We went out that night, but I forgot my camera, nothing too special.

November 4:  Taormina!  Today was quite the adventure, all in all, we took a bus, ferry, train, and cab in our travels to and from Taormina.  The ferry across from Reggio to Sicily took about half hour, and that thing was moving.  It was a pretty large boat, it could probably hold over 100 passengers and had to have been going 35 miles an hour at least.  We got to the first city in Sicily, Messina, which was nothing special at all.  The one thing that was great in Messina was this food called Arancini (pronounced aranchini). 

Arancini

It was this cone shaped friend ball with rice, cheese, some sort of amazing sauce, and ham – for only 1,50€ it was the best snack I`ve had this far in europe.  From Messina we hopped on the train, for Tanner’s first train ride ever!  Took about an hour to get to Taormina, and once we got there we got impaceint waiting for the bus and hopped in a 5 minute cab ride that set us back 15€, I knew it was bad news when he didn’t have a meter.  Oh well.  Finally in Taormina, the views were breathtaking, and the city was just so neat.  

When you think of Italy, you think of Taormina – winding streets, every other street was stairs because of the slope the city is built on, and around every corner was a different beautiful view of the Mediterannean.  

Windy streets and staircases!

Little garden Tanner and I found

We just sort of wandered around the city aimlessly, which was awesome – we got lost for a while which actually was legitimately fun.  It was pretty cloudy and started to rain towards the end, a sunny day would have been great, but it was still beautiful nonetheless.  

We made our way back to Reggio, and walked around in Reggio until 8, where we went to BIRRI BASTA.  The best restaurant in the world!  

SUCH A COOL PLACE

It was the coolest, best vibe I have ever gotten in a restaurant – the bars were clear glass so you could see all the kegs and lines going to the taps, they had pictures of all their patrons up on the wall, and a list of beers that about quadrupled the list of food.  

The beer on the right was like no beer I had ever had, the taste left your pallet after every sip, so it was like your first sip every time.  Very neat.

I had one belguim beer and one german beer, both delicious and unlike any other beer I have had, plus the pizza wasn’t too shabby either.  

Clear bars, with black lighting

I couldn’t stop thinking about how well a place like that would do if it was in Harrisonburg, it was absolutely awesome.  We didn’t go out that night because the girls had a game the next day, so we just hung out and watched Spy Games, which I had never seen before, and it blew my mind, such a neat plot.

November 5: Today we slept in again while the girls had practice and woke up to head to Scilla (pronounced sheela) around 11:30.  It was just a half hour train ride to this tiny town that was RIGHT on the water.  When I say right on the water, I mean the furthest house from the beach was no more than a few hundred feet.  

Gorgeous

We had lunch and this stray dog came up to us, who was soo cute and followed us around all day because we kept giving him food.  After lunch we went up to the old castle that you can see in the picture above that was a defense outpost with even better views out into the ocean.  

Other side of Scilla

speaks for itself

After touring around that we just hung out on the beach for a few hours, vegging out and actually swam, in November!  The water was probably aroun 70 degrees, but the cool thing was that the water is so salty that you literally did not have to put forth any effort to float.  

Splashh!

Just floatin'

You could just spread eagle, put your hands behind your head and float without doing anything – awesome!  We trained back to Reggio and the girls had a game that night.  Admittedly, I did not have high expectations for this game, but they were GOOD.  

They killed the other team and everyone had a great game, I was very impressed with their skills.  We went out that night, the nightlife is nothing too great, but it was still fun.  We woke up at like 5 to head to the airport and back to Spain we went!

Italy was awesome.

Rome, Italy!

Total Fall break mile count: 2,585. Salamanca to Madrid, Madrid to Rome, Rome to Reggio and back.  Once in Reggio, we went to Taormina (Sicily) and back, as well as Scilla and Back.  Look em up on a map!

Monday, October 31st, Happy Halloween!  We flew air europa from Madrid to Rome without issue, and then caught a bus from the airport (named after Da Vinci) into the center of town.  Our hostel, The Yellow, was somewhat famous and very cool.  By the time we got there it was about noon, so we dropped our bags and headed off to be gladiators.  You can see the colosseum all you want in movies, textbooks, and on google image but you just don’t get it till you see it in person.  The word that comes to mind for all of these huge ancient structures for me is impressive. 

View from outside!

They are just so big and complex in construction and function, that it’s pretty unreal how long ago they were built.  

The colloseum was all it is hyped up to be and more – the sheer size of it was unbelievable, and the idea that they filled up the bottom portion with water to stage naval battles was the coolest thing to me.  

Moving on, the palatino was like an ancient college campus – houses, fields, random buildings that I wasn’t quite sure what they were, and the huge athletic field where they started the decathalon and the olympics!  

Ancient Field!  

The Roman Forum was lots of pillars, old churches, and old stages – wasn’t quite sure about the history per say, but it was still neat to see all of it.  After a long day of site-seeing, we returned to our hostel at about 5:30, and got a shower and a nap.  Then we headed out to dinner, at Restaurante al Giardini, a restaurant that was in Tanner’s college travel guide written by Harvard grad students, which has been a life saver.  I got this amazing pasta, that I’m not sure what it was, but the noodels were clearly home-made and coated in some sort of sauce, but it wasn’t a sauce like I’d ever had. 

Authentic Italian!

Topped it off with fresh parmesian cheese, and it was delish.  We ended up meeting all kinds of people at the hostel – brits, Australians, people from Holland (Dutch?), Ireland, New Zealand, and the States.  With that mix of people all having happy hour drinks, it turned into a big ole party as more people kept getting there as the night went on.  The world is SO SMALL – I met two girls in the hostel who go to University of Richmond and hang out with my friends from high school!  Getting even smaller, I met a girl who goes to Davidson and knows my friend from middle school who now plays baseball there!  Craziness.

Tuesday, November 1st.  Ouch.  Waking up was rough, and on top of that, All Saints Day is a national holiday in Italy (who knew).  We made the best of it.  We headed down to the famous Roman out-door markets, in the Southern part of the city called Fori Imperi, Which was SO COOL.  In terms of cultural experience, it’s been one of my favorite things yet.  

Awesome Market!

There were all kinda of vendors which you could barter with and ask for stuff – foods, spices, pastas, t-shirts, jewelry, hats, ties – you name it and it was there.  We shopped around there for quite some time, and on a cool note, there was a statue in that plaza on which the video game character in Assasins Creed is based. 

For all you Assassin's Creed fans out there

From there, we got some awesome pizza (one of my top two favorites in Italy). 

Spicy Salami with Tomatoes and Spinach!  Delishhh

After lunch, we walked to this artisan square where there were thousands of paintings and drawings on sale, and these street artists who were SO TALENTED doing ridiculously good pastel portraits in under 15 minutes.  

We watched this one from start to finish, which was incredible

From there we hit the Trevi Fountain, which was gigantic, you couldn’t even fit half of it in one picture frame, zoomed all the way out.  

At the Trevi Fountain, last picture with the oakleys, sad day.

We tossed our two coins into the fountain, for return to Rome and good health!  After that we went to this huge park where all the trees looked like they were from Africa, only the tops had leaves and branches, it was nice and relaxed.  That night we went out to an ICE CLUB, a bar that was completely made out of ice, it was quite an experience, but it was a fun time.  

A bunch of people form our hostel ended up there too, so it was fun!

Wed, Nov 2: Not a national holiday, thus the Vatican was open!  We missed the Pope speaking by like an hour, which would have been so cool, but it was still an experience.  You were allowed to photograph ALL of the vatican museums, which was a pleasant surprise I took advantage of.  I’m not going to walk you through every bit of the Vatican Museums, just my favorite parts, which were Raphaels apartment (my favorite example of art), the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Square, and St. Peter’s Basilica.  We started off in the meseum, seeing all kinds of statues and works of art from literally all over the world.  The immense collection itself is enough to stun you, but the quality is what got me.  There was a room called the Sala Rotunda, with moziac floors depicting mythical battles that was AWESOME, and they had a statue of Hercules. 

Moziac pictures!

Hercules Hercules!

There was a really cool tapestry of the last supper that I liked, here it is.

Getting into Raphael’s apartment, you are just awestruck at the incredible artwork that is all throughout these massive rooms.  My personal favorite was the ceiling of one of the rooms, which depicted four biblical scenes: Moses and the Burning Bush, a sacrifice that I can’t put my finger on, Jacob’s latter, and the Birth of Christ.  Very cool.  

Whole ceiling

Birth of Christ

Jacob's Ladder

Moses and the Burning Bush

Sacrifice...name is escaping me right now

Moving into the Sistine Chapel, the hype was destroyed.  It was just amazing to think that one person painted this by himself.  Apparently Da Vinci never recovered from back problems that he sustained while leaning backward to paint the ceiling.  The famous finger touch can be scene in th center, but the zoom on my camera is not good so I couldn’t zoom in very far.  I was just overwhelmed by all of the paintings, it was something else.  Here are some pictures.

Front Wall

Ceiling - famous finger touching part in top left hand corner

more ceiling

Unbelievable!

Moving out of the meseums, and entering St. Peter’s Square, as corny as it sounds, I could just feel the history.  It was pretty neat to imagine the square being packed, everyone waiting for the announcement of a new pope.  I can’t even imagine how many people could fit in it, it’s freaking huge.  I also am a big Angels and Deamons fan, so it was cool seeing where the movie was filmed!  Here are some pictures of St Peter’s Square. 

Just plain awesome

Tan-man and I livin the life

The line into the Basilica was about 40 minutes, not bad considering it can apparently get up to 4 hours, and it was the only line we waited in all day.  As soon as we got in, our jaws damn near hit the floor.  This was, for me, the most impressive thing we saw all trip.  The ceilings had to have been 200 feet, and God knows how high the dome was (it is still the biggest in the world). 

Packed, but didn't even feel crowded it was so big

The statue of Mary and Jesus that is so famous was pretty moving, and there were other huge statues and paintings that were gorgeous also.  

Mary holding Jesus

The way they had the windows set up, the light was beaming in so beautifully and it was an awesome time of day to see it.  They were actually setting up for mass, which was neat to see.  

Pretty light beaming in

The dome!

The big wooden awning thing was massive and intricately designed, with thombs all around and an actual body of one of the Popes visible in a glass Coffin.  I did not care to look at it, grossed me out.  Still, my favorite was definitely being in St. Peter’s Square, it was just really really cool, that’s the best adjective I can use to describe it.  After a long day at Vatican City, we grabbed some quick pizza and headed to the airport to catch our flight.  Blog about Reggio Di Calabria and the South of Italy to come!  I need a break, this one took me a few hours!  Ciao!