So my end of the semester odyssey has begun!
My travels will take me to Spain, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, and then back to the States.
I am currently in Athens, after spending 4 days in Madrid, Spain.
While in Madrid I: Rowed around in a rowboat, visited the Prado, ate a whole roasted chicken, ate some paella (spl), saw flamenco dancing, and drank a weird concoction that spouted from a dispenser in the ceiling of a bar called "The Cave", stalagtites and all.
So far in Athens I have been to the Pireaus and the Acropolis, and have eaten 3 gyros since I arrived yesterday. Leaving for Santorini on Thursday.
Updates will be sporatic depending on how often I can get to a computer with internet and no new pics will be posted until I return home on the 14th of June.
22.5.07
18.4.07
18/4
3 papers down, 3 more to go. Today I also get to work on my cover letter for intern applications. I originally planned on applying at Sen Menedez's and Lautenberg's offices, but earlier this morning, Ben sent me a new idea. Interning with the House Ways and Means Committee. That would be a switch of chambers and would rock. Now I just need to find out what they require for an intern application.
3.4.07
2/4
Holy week has decended on Rome...time for a a few million more people to show up.
Spring break photos added to the picture site
Spring break photos added to the picture site
28.3.07
28/03
Day 1: Arrived in Marseilles airport ahead of schedule, around 10am. This was not really good news for me as Vanessa and Anne weren’t getting in until 6 pm, Marseilles was a 10 Euro bus ride away, and the hotel was not only booked in Vanessa’s name, but I had no idea where it was. Thus started my wonderful day in the Marseilles airport, and was I ever grateful that I had a book with me. 8 hours, and 800 pages later, Vanessa and Anne’s plane arrived right on schedule from Amsterdam, they being the only two college kids on break who would go to Amsterdam for Anne Frank and Van Gogh rather than drugs and prostitutes. We head into town, find the address and go to our hotel, only to find the front desk closed with no way to get our keys. The emergency number posted only resulted in an answering machine. We go find another hotel where the extremely nice and helpful (and French too) receptionist calls our hotel for us, talks to the people who decided to pick up this time and gets us the combo to the safe with our keys. Finally in our room, Vanessa and I go on a search for food and find a place that will allow us to get take-out, but take-out on the dinner plates they usually serve on. The guy even gives us a bottle opener for the water we ordered. Dinner was Italian pasta while watching a weird French show that put naked people in public places to see others’ reactions. Fun stuff.
Day 2: Off to Nice on the train. It was about a 2.5 hour trip to Nice from Marseilles, a time even the vaunted TGV didn’t cut down on. The TGV had a run time of 2h34min to Nice, the regional was 2h40min and was half the cost. Regional here we come. While on the train, we watched this little girl running around on the platform, making weird faces. She saw us watching and proceeded to stick her tongue out at us, flicked us off, throw a rock at our window, and then run off once more. She was very entertaining. Once in Nice, past the sex shops directly across from St. Charles Gare (the train station), we find the hotel easily, drop our stuff, and hit the seaside. We walked all over the city, picked up Candace, ate some Cuban food, and went to bed.
Day 3: Off to Monaco. Monaco is a 20 minute train ride from Nice and is 3 Euros round trip. Hard to beat a price like that so off to Monaco we went. We arrived in time to see the changing of the guard in front of the Palace, which, I’m sorry to say, has nothing on the pomp and circumstance of the Buckingham Palace guard changing. After the switch, we grabbed lunch at a place that advertised having sausage. Thinking I would be getting some good sausage, I ordered it, only to have 2 skinny hotdogs w/out a bun being brought to me. Very disappointing. Walked around the rest of Monaco, which didn’t take too long and headed back to Nice for dinner. We went to a kebab place just off Promenade de Anglais. It was amazing. A full plate of greasy meat strips, lettuce and tomato with tzasaki (spelled it way off) sauce and a beer. Best meal of the trip so far.
Day 4: Back to Marseilles. We go back to Marseilles and try with no luck to find an English cinema. After this failure we grab dinner at a little restaurant were our food adventures begin. Looking at the chef’s recommendations, my French fails me and I order what I think to be a beef and chicken meat pie. It wasn’t. What I got instead was a plate of raw meat with a raw egg on top. This was very shocking and when I finally was able to explain to the waiter that this wasn’t what I thought I had ordered and could they please take it back and cook it for me, my table had ran through a little French and a lot of English, Italian, and Spanish getting the concept across. The chef got his revenge however by cooking the meat for me and then pouring the raw egg on top of it. Besides the egg, the meat was great, and had a great spice to it.
Day 5: Walkabout. We spent the next day walking all through Marseilles, of which there is a great deal to walk through. We couldn’t go out to the Castle D’If, made famous by The Count of Monte Cristo, so instead we got crepes and panini on the quay (For some reason the Southern French seem obsessed with Italian. It was a struggle to find places that weren’t Italian restaurants). After walking about, we headed to our room to grab our bags and go to the airport. Our flight was the next morning, but it was so early so to make getting to the airport very difficult and checkout impossible. So we, and most of our flight, instead grabbed benches at the airport. It was a very sleepless night that I only survived by buying Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in a bookstore that had about 10 English language books, most of them being by Clive Cluster. The flight the next morning was a bit delayed because a steward needed to be called in to cover for a sick call, but we arrived on time and took a cab back to Trastevere, our little corner of Rome.
Day 2: Off to Nice on the train. It was about a 2.5 hour trip to Nice from Marseilles, a time even the vaunted TGV didn’t cut down on. The TGV had a run time of 2h34min to Nice, the regional was 2h40min and was half the cost. Regional here we come. While on the train, we watched this little girl running around on the platform, making weird faces. She saw us watching and proceeded to stick her tongue out at us, flicked us off, throw a rock at our window, and then run off once more. She was very entertaining. Once in Nice, past the sex shops directly across from St. Charles Gare (the train station), we find the hotel easily, drop our stuff, and hit the seaside. We walked all over the city, picked up Candace, ate some Cuban food, and went to bed.
Day 3: Off to Monaco. Monaco is a 20 minute train ride from Nice and is 3 Euros round trip. Hard to beat a price like that so off to Monaco we went. We arrived in time to see the changing of the guard in front of the Palace, which, I’m sorry to say, has nothing on the pomp and circumstance of the Buckingham Palace guard changing. After the switch, we grabbed lunch at a place that advertised having sausage. Thinking I would be getting some good sausage, I ordered it, only to have 2 skinny hotdogs w/out a bun being brought to me. Very disappointing. Walked around the rest of Monaco, which didn’t take too long and headed back to Nice for dinner. We went to a kebab place just off Promenade de Anglais. It was amazing. A full plate of greasy meat strips, lettuce and tomato with tzasaki (spelled it way off) sauce and a beer. Best meal of the trip so far.
Day 4: Back to Marseilles. We go back to Marseilles and try with no luck to find an English cinema. After this failure we grab dinner at a little restaurant were our food adventures begin. Looking at the chef’s recommendations, my French fails me and I order what I think to be a beef and chicken meat pie. It wasn’t. What I got instead was a plate of raw meat with a raw egg on top. This was very shocking and when I finally was able to explain to the waiter that this wasn’t what I thought I had ordered and could they please take it back and cook it for me, my table had ran through a little French and a lot of English, Italian, and Spanish getting the concept across. The chef got his revenge however by cooking the meat for me and then pouring the raw egg on top of it. Besides the egg, the meat was great, and had a great spice to it.
Day 5: Walkabout. We spent the next day walking all through Marseilles, of which there is a great deal to walk through. We couldn’t go out to the Castle D’If, made famous by The Count of Monte Cristo, so instead we got crepes and panini on the quay (For some reason the Southern French seem obsessed with Italian. It was a struggle to find places that weren’t Italian restaurants). After walking about, we headed to our room to grab our bags and go to the airport. Our flight was the next morning, but it was so early so to make getting to the airport very difficult and checkout impossible. So we, and most of our flight, instead grabbed benches at the airport. It was a very sleepless night that I only survived by buying Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in a bookstore that had about 10 English language books, most of them being by Clive Cluster. The flight the next morning was a bit delayed because a steward needed to be called in to cover for a sick call, but we arrived on time and took a cab back to Trastevere, our little corner of Rome.
14.3.07
14/3
Today was a classic Roman day.
Woke up and waited for the bus to take me to the Vatican...and waited...and waited.
Toured around the Vatican museum with a friend of Anne's, and the guy at the ticket desk was so bored out of his mind that he didn't care we were obviously not Italian or EU students, so we got a 5 Euro break on ticket prices.
Walked around the museum, lots of old stuff including the restored Sistine Chapel, which is still great.
Tried to go home, got stuck in traffic because a tour buss couldn't manage the turn.
A big traffic jam developed with lots of angry gestures and horn honking.
the driver of the bus and 3 people stuck in the traffic jam got out of their vehicles, looked at the bus, looked at the car, picked up the car, got back in their cars and drove off.
Thank God for Italians, little cars, and no alarm systems.
Woke up and waited for the bus to take me to the Vatican...and waited...and waited.
Toured around the Vatican museum with a friend of Anne's, and the guy at the ticket desk was so bored out of his mind that he didn't care we were obviously not Italian or EU students, so we got a 5 Euro break on ticket prices.
Walked around the museum, lots of old stuff including the restored Sistine Chapel, which is still great.
Tried to go home, got stuck in traffic because a tour buss couldn't manage the turn.
A big traffic jam developed with lots of angry gestures and horn honking.
the driver of the bus and 3 people stuck in the traffic jam got out of their vehicles, looked at the bus, looked at the car, picked up the car, got back in their cars and drove off.
Thank God for Italians, little cars, and no alarm systems.
5.3.07
5/3
The Chinese restaurant down the street from me is great. Not only do Chinese people eat there (a good indication of the quality of the food), but its also dirt cheap. Dumplings are 1 euro for 2, big spring rolls are 1 euro each, and the main dishes are between 4 to 6 Euro. Very cheap and mouth watering. What was weird about it was ordering Chinese food in Italian. Zuppa di won ton, riso bianco, e pollo con veruti mista just sounds weird. The food was great, but a huge damper was that sesame chicken and general tso’s chicken doesn’t exist in Italian Chinese food. Disappointing.
27.2.07
27/2
So today I ran into my first crazy Italian person on the Tram.
The tram was very crowded, as is usual on a weekday morning. I step on the tram, and take my place near the center pole. A woman accidently steps on another woman's foot, about 2 feet from me. The one whose foot was stepped on, rather than shrugging off an accident that happens in a crowded place, started screaming at the woman about her foot. This continued and then just became a constant scream of "Basta! Basta! Basta!" very loudly, very close
Everyone on the tram made a circle of open air around this woman, as big a one as possible, which wasn't so big. I, and about 5 other people got off the tram at the next stop. However, once more people came on, I heard the tram pull away, with the screaming beginning anew.
Not a good experience, but considering how open a tram system it is, this being the first experience in two months is pretty small.
In case I haven't said before, my roommate Time is a snorer, but only when he's on his back. When he is though...sawing is not strong enough of a noise ;) It was bad enough that Saturday night, I actually grabbed my mattress off my bed, carried it to the living room, and slept in their. Unfortunately, this drastic measure didn't occur to me until like 4 in the morning, so Sunday was one long day.
The tram was very crowded, as is usual on a weekday morning. I step on the tram, and take my place near the center pole. A woman accidently steps on another woman's foot, about 2 feet from me. The one whose foot was stepped on, rather than shrugging off an accident that happens in a crowded place, started screaming at the woman about her foot. This continued and then just became a constant scream of "Basta! Basta! Basta!" very loudly, very close
Everyone on the tram made a circle of open air around this woman, as big a one as possible, which wasn't so big. I, and about 5 other people got off the tram at the next stop. However, once more people came on, I heard the tram pull away, with the screaming beginning anew.
Not a good experience, but considering how open a tram system it is, this being the first experience in two months is pretty small.
In case I haven't said before, my roommate Time is a snorer, but only when he's on his back. When he is though...sawing is not strong enough of a noise ;) It was bad enough that Saturday night, I actually grabbed my mattress off my bed, carried it to the living room, and slept in their. Unfortunately, this drastic measure didn't occur to me until like 4 in the morning, so Sunday was one long day.
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