Just around the riverbend

Not only have I been neglecting this blog like an overweight, clingy girlfriend, but I've also been cheating on it with a new blog (however, if you aren't a student at my university, it wouldn't interest you).

The farthest I've traveled physically is down the road to Blue Springs. Several of my sorority sisters and I decided to visit the refreshing 70 degree springs for some relaxation and sisterhood bonding. After watching the ease at which several middle aged people paddled through the springs on canoes, three of us split the cost to rent a canoe for the afternoon. As we were being pushed out into the water by an attendant, he asked us if it was our first time. Admitting yes, the attendant laughed and said, "Boy, this should be fun" and gave us a final push to begin our canoeing adventure.

After spending twenty minutes paddling in a circle and trying not to tip ourselves over, we finally got some idea on how to move forward. That certainly didn't help us from freaking out about alligators that we believed were swimming around us. Needless to say, I ended up having a great time and got a good tan before fall starts to kick in. There isn't much longer I'll be able to wear my bathing suit.

That being said, I'm slowing progressing on a mental journey to de-stress myself and find happiness. I've started picking up various interests to occupy my time. I've started playing tennis casually with one of my sisters and I'm about to begin studying French in hopes of summer. I plan on working in Paris part time this summer for about three months, but I need to get a grasp on the language first. But perhaps the most enlightening (or rather, intellectually stimulating) is my exploration of Buddhism.

I'm not saying that I've decided that Buddhism is a religion for me, but rather I want to understand the religion. I believe that I can take qualities of Buddhism and incorporate them into a life philosophy that will strengthen my happiness.

I look forward to wherever both my physical and mental journeys take me in the next couple of months.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

I know its been an awfully long time since I've made a post, and you probably don't want to read whatever I'm saying because I'm no longer visiting beautiful places.

After our first flight was cancelled back to America, I was one of the lucky ones who somehow got on a flight the same day, but flying Lufthansa. Free wine all the way home! After landing, I forced my parents to take me to Chipotle, because I hadn't had any tex-mex for six weeks. And since I've landed back in America, its been non-stop. Back to school, Alpha Xi, recruitment, trying to get philanthropy week ready, and now I started working as a bartender at this place called Halftime (Who knew going to the same place every night lands you a job? Haha).

Next week we get our new baby xis, and I'm legitimately excited to meet them. I hope with this new pledge class, we can make Alpha Xi all that it can be. Its a long climb, but I love every one of my sisters so much; I know we can do it.

I keep thinking back on my days in Innsbruck that were for the most part, care-free. Making a mistake there ending up just being another adventure, rather than a roadblock like it is here when I'm back at Stetson. I need to be back there.

Countdown to next summer abroad?

Let go of your inhibitions and just...

JUMP.

I think in the process of re-discovering myself these past few weeks, I have learned a new hobby: risk taking and doing things that get my adrenaline pumping. This weekend I got the chance to visit beautiful Cinque Terre off the Italian Mediterranean coast. We took a walk through the Via Dell'Amore, which is famously known as the "love walk" where you bring a lock and lock it onto the walls there, in order to seal your love eternally with your partner. It is a short walk, about 15 minutes and it leads the way into the second village, Manarola, where you can swim in this small inlet.

The inlet has some larger rocks that jet out, so we were able to jump off of some rather large ones into the ocean. The water was clearer than it was in Daytona, so it was quite scary looking down and seeing a school of fish swimming, and better yet, rocks at the bottom that you may or may not hit. Being careful to jump into the deeper spot of the inlet, it was probably one of my most favorite experiences. The rush you feel when you just run off the side of a rock and cannonball into the ocean is something simple that everyone should experience: its like a renewal of your soul.After we got our fill of jumping off of rocks and swimming with schools of fish, we hopped on the train to the farthest of the five villages, Monterosso al Mare, where they have an actual beach (and lots of fit Italian men in speedos). Best buy if you happen to visit here: 4 euro for a float, so you can lounge in the water and get a tan. Spending money on one of those lounge chairs isn't as cool as being able to lay out in the ocean, where there aren't any waves, and you feel like you are in a pool.

I thought because this place was the most touristy of the five villages in Cinque Terre, that their drinks (especially mixed ones) would be super expensive, but we went to a wine bar that was located directly on the beach and got some pina coladas for 5 euro. We skipped lunch because we wanted to be at the beach for as long as possible, so around 7pm we started getting hungry so headed back to Manarola in order to get a nice Italian seafood dinner. Cinque Terre is known for their fresh fish, and I have to say that it was probably some of the best calamari that I have eaten. Maybe it tasted so good because we had an amazing view of the sun setting on the Mediterranean or because we hadn't eaten all day, but I was okay with paying 20 euros for my linguine pesto and calamari.

We didn't stay in the actual villages of Cinque Terre, because our train was scheduled for 8am the next day out of La Spezia, the closest actual city to the Cinque Terre region (about a 15 minute train ride; it runs once or twice an hour) and we didn't want to miss it. But it was a blessing in disguise for us with the deal we got; our hotel had an amazing view of La Spezia and the surrounding region. It was 2 bedrooms, full kitchen, a porch, and a pool. If we could of stayed more days, this hotel would of really been worth it. I wish we had more time to check out the night life and lounge in the pool or on our porch with a bottle of some regional wine.

Cinque Terre has quickly become one of my favorite destinations of this summer, and its beauty makes me want to visit it again and again. The fact that I was able to spend a day in a place where there was absolutely no car access was really incredible, and it was refreshing to be away from the noise of most European cities. I wish I could of spent a whole long weekend here, rather than just one night. However, it certainly was a perfect ending to my six week excursion to Europe. In two days time I'll be on a plane heading back to the United States and back to my regular life. :-( So sad to be leaving my jetsetter lifestyle for a while.

Taking time to relax and think

It is kind of crazy how you can hop onto a train after class and head to a city a couple hours away for the afternoon here in Europe. This week I decided to jump on a train with Sarah, and check out Salzburg for the day (Yes, that translates into the city of salt; it is Salzburg’s main industry).
The city is quite quaint, and we finished walking through it in a little over an hour so we had time to walk around downtown, do a little window shopping, buy a shot glass for my collection, take lots of obnoxious tourist photos in the beautiful gardens, and check out the Mozart and wine festival that was happening. If you ever do have time to stop in Salzburg, don’t miss the gardens. It only take a few minutes to walk through if we aren’t counting the time you spend taking photos of the gorgeous scenery, and it leads you directly to the main shopping district downtown. And it was especially nice when we were walking through, because there was band playing Mozart in the center of the park.

If I wasn’t running low on cash, I would of taken time to go through the museum that is dedicated to Mozart—I’m sure its something my brother would have been interested in. However, I feel as though all I’ve done is see museum after museum, so at least these last couple of days here in Europe I’d like to do things at a more explorative, leisure pace.

Speaking of it being my last few days before I head back to the States, I’m wondering if I’m a changed person from when I first came here six weeks ago. And if I will have the same culture shock that other people have had before me: happy to be back home, then suddenly missing everything about Europe. My roommate told me that she can’t wait to be home, and that she can ‘t wait to be back in her comfortable family. Not that my family isn’t comfortable or I don’t miss them, but I feel like I will miss Europe too much, because I feel more creative and more comfortable here. Even finally decided to switch my major from the easy, practical Business to what I always really wanted: English and History. In a few hours I will be on a train to the beautiful beaches of Cinque Terre, then back in time to study and take my finals, then I will be taking a very long flight back to sunny Florida. Its strange to think in just a few days I will be on a plane home and away from this fairytale lifestyle.

Successful Gypsying.

First, I would like to tell you that Italy is by far one of the most beautiful countries overall that I've seen. Italy needs to be its own two to three week excursion because there are too many places I want to explore (In fact, it took a lot of willpower not to jump off at every train stop to wander around). On that note, I probably also wanted to jump off at every train stop because Italian trains are some of the dirtiest trains in the Eurail system and I was sincerely scared for bed bugs. And I did get a few, but I've done well not to itch them and they aren't really noticeable.

I barely slept on our overnight to Roma because a family of four tried to sit in what is supposed to be 2 seats, making our 6 person cabin into a very squishy 8 person cabin, and apparently you don't need reservations to take the overnight in Italy as long as you don't want a seat. The halls outside the compartments were filled with people chatting away loudly. Because I had a little old nun attempting sleep beside me, I tried to get everyone to quiet down to no avail: They just laughed and said, "Stupid Americano!" I fell asleep eventually with my iPod on as loud as I could handle.

Once we made it to Roma, we found our hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed for the Vatican. People aren't lying when they say you can't miss the Vatican. The Sistine Chapel was magnificent but completely crowded with guards yelling at you. At least in my eyes, it couldn't compare to the absolute beauty of St.Peter's Basilica in all its glory. After buying my rosary beads in the Vatican, I made sure to get them blessed at the Basilica (especially the ones for my goddaughter and niece). Keep this little tidbit in mind next time you visit Rome: when a waiter asks you if you want take away or sit down, always say take away--they double your charge for sitting down. Sneaky little Romans. Later that night the nine of us went on the Colosseum Pub Crawl, which made me rethink going on a pub crawl ever again. Or perhaps it was the ruckus that the Australians and our group made toward eachother (almost getting into an outright brawl), but I just thought the whole thing was sketchy. Spanish Steps Pub Crawl for sure next time I venture to Rome.

Saturday we went on a tour of the Colosseum and Nero's palace ruins. We had an awesome tour guide for that, who apparently is on some travel show about Rome. I really want to look into that. He kept the tour interesting, and had some really good stories to tell us--I learned that the Roman men never really had hair back then on their bodies because after they spent the day sweating, they rubbed off the sweat with sand and vinegar. Which led into how the Barbarians got their name, which roughly translate into smelly goat people. We ate at a local restaurant and I had amazing spicy pasta before checking out the Spanish Steps at night. Apparently this is also a local hangout, as many people just brought their own booze and hung out on the steps for hours.

We woke up sunday at the frighteningly time of 6:30 in the morning to make it to the train station for the earliest connection to Venice (Venezia), only to find out we needed reservations. After making some, we left at the 10am time to make it there late afternoon. If you are at the train station in Venice, and your friend tells you that he thinks it is only "25 minutes to our hotel", get the water taxi for 10 euro. You'll get lost and you'll walk up and down tons of steps. Needless to say, I got quite the walking tour of Venice and I do have to say that it is a wonderfully captivating city. Luckily our hotel was right next to San Marco, which is one of the most popular plazas, so we were able to walk around and do lots of shopping once we settled in. Shopping is kind of understatement for me: glass quills, wine toppers, hair barrettes, masks, etc. After it started getting dark, we took a gondola tour. The waterways at night are a thing not to be missed, especially with a bottle of Pinot Grigio (the wine comes from Venice). Although there isn't as much to see in Venice as there is in Rome, I wish I had more time to explore. It certainly was prettier and cleaner than Rome.

Although it didn't occur as frequently in Venice as it did in Rome, I felt like I was being constantly bombarded with gypsies trying to sell me trinkets, trying to steal my wallet, and trying to steal my luggage when I was boarding the train. I can't count the number of times I said "No vasta!" Half of Rome's population must be gypsies.

I never had the chance to see the Pantheon or visit the Venetian beaches, and theres so many other places in Italy I'd want to see. Florence, Naples, Sicily, and the list goes on. Hopefully one day I'll get to see all these places in depth, rather than just passing through them in a weekend trip. If anything, I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do when traveling, like the way restaurants work in Italy to whether or not to reserve an in-country train. For now I'm back in Innsbruck, which is freezing and raining, until tomorrow night when I leave for my last weekend excursion. I'll be visiting Cinque Terre on the Mediterrean, which will be so nice to actually see a beach! Coming from a beach town in Florida, all these cities are starting to blend together and I'd like to get some fresh air.

A city synonymous with hedonism.

Amsterdam.

What does one say about a city dedicated to the art of partying, naked girls, and an all around crazy time? We got off our train at 9:30 am, checked out a few places, and around noon saw our first live sex show--which made me believe that I had just helped fund the illegal sex trade. We were all nervous, telling eachother, "Oh, God, what are we doing here? This is so weird!"--but as the show continued on (and believe me, some of these people you never want to see naked in your life) every single one of us was staring open eyed and mouths open. It wasn't that any of us enjoyed it, in fact, we were probably more disgusted. The creepier part in my opinion was that there were normal older, Dutch men who were sitting alone for this b-rate show, giving me the impression that this was a regular activity for some of them. I was intrigued, and somewhat saddened, by the idea that these people did this on a daily basis to make ends meet. A woman in one of the couples looked a few months pregnant and was wearing a wedding band. I've been particularly bothered by that couple for days now, and I don't know if even in the worst situation, I would be able to do bring myself to such an extent to provide for myself or my family. How does one get in such a bad financial situation that they have to have bad sex with eachother to an audience?

Besides getting my wallet stolen and missing my train connection to Vienna, I really enjoyed Amsterdam. And that wasn't because I'm a 20 year old college student trying to have a fun "eurotrip", but because Amsterdam is actually pretty stimulating culturally. If I had more time to spend there, I really wanted to check out the Anne Frank house exhibit, but it had about a three hour wait and there was really no time to sit in line like that. However, I don't know if I will ever decide to take a trip back there because there are just so many other worthwhile places I'd like to visit in my life, and Amsterdam was good--but its not a place I'd visit multiple times like Paris or Dublin.

One thing I do have to inform everyone about is the food. Sure, theres french fry stands and lots of McDonalds for stoners who are craving munchies, but I actually ate really well and it wasn't even authentic Dutch food (what is authentic Dutch food anyway? Probably more pork like every other country here). Our group happened to find this really nice and relatively inexpensive (considering the large amount of food they gave us) Indonesian restaurant. For about 20 euro a person, they fill your whole table up with tons of different food choices and every single one of them was to die for.

After Mary and I figured out our train situation, we found ourselves with a six hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. This is a place you cannot pay me to visit. We found an open bar and ended up having a great conversation with the barowner, who was introducing us to some tasty German beers. We were people-watching and I just have to make it known that Frankfurt is home to some of the scariest, ugliest people I have ever seen. Mary was smoking her cigarette when an obviously drugged up man comes over to ask for one. Before she could oblige, the barowner had told him to leave us and his bar alone, causing the man freak out. He started screaming in German and running around in circles until he suddenly pulled out a large crowbar. Just to add a little bit to the extent of his craziness, he stops midway through some of his insults to pull out a bottle of vodka and chugs at least half of it straight. He then goes for the barowner, swinging his crowbar around until finally some police officers take control of the situation.

When things finally calmed down, three drunk Russians who know very little English sit down with us. At first they were nice but once introductions were through, one would not stop trying to touch me, the other wouldn't stop taking photos of us (and we weren't posing, believe me), and the third kept telling me how he'd like to take me on a vacation to Bulgaria or somewhere like that. I'm pretty sure what he meant by "take me on a vacation" was "trick me into being kidnapped and part of the sex trade", because later on they kept telling us we had to go back to their homes with them. We had to switch our seats about three times before the barowner charged them for our beers and then kicked them out.

Oh, and just one more thing: that crazy man with the crowbar was never arrested, they let him walk off. What the hell, Germany?!

"That's so hipster!"

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

–Ernest Hemingway

This quote pretty much immortalizes my changed view on Paris, a city I completely fell in love with unexpectedly. Not only that, but this was probably one of my most epic weekends thus far. But lets start off talking about Zurich, our pit stop for a night before moving onto the city of light.

Zurich may make a mean gin and tonic (Would you like some tonic with that glass of gin?), but it pretty much bankrupted me and the Swiss guy we ended up hanging out with kept smacking me in the head instead of high fiving me like everyone else. Oh, and I spent 11 francs (the equivalent to the dollar’s exchange rates) on McDonalds. Plus one of our friends pretty much puked all over the city the next day before our train. Once in Paris, It took us about two hours to navigate to where our hotel was and how to figure out the metro system, so we didn’t get to our hotel Friday night until around 10 pm, so the four of us decided to quickly change and try to meet up with some of our friends that were also in Paris at the same time, so we got hot dogs in a park we walked through, and met up with our friends at Dupliex Club, and had an amazing time (albeit we accidently walked into an gay bar for the older Parisian crowd). Without even realizing it, we were dancing away until after 4 AM.

We woke up early Saturday morning and walked up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and bought 10 euro glasses of champagne to toast to our rockstar lifestyles, ate breakfast crepes, checked out Notre Dame, and then spent the remaining part of the afternoon exploring the Louvre. We went shopping at H&M so we could have going out outfits, and made plans with Daniella to go drink wine under the Eiffel Tower and go clubbing on a boat.

Sunday night I was able to meet some French guys who I left the club with, and we walked around Paris for hours having good conversation. I think sometimes this might mean I am a wanderer, or that I just love making new friends. It probably was dangerous, but they were very nice! I learned several useful French phrases through them and was able to see a lot of Paris that I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t gone with them. One thing I did notice about France is that I can categorize most of the French into two categories: people who hate everyone (or at least anyone who doesn’t live in Paris) and people who are curious.

And good advice that I may or may not one day delve into one day if you don’t want to get back to your dormitory at 4:30 AM: Don’t miss your train because your friends have your reservations and all the other trains are booked because you thought it’d be cool to see Paris during Bastille week. But for now I’m in a sleeper train heading toward the crazy city of Amsterdam with pretty much everyone in our program, deathly afraid of getting bed bugs (Pray for me! Haha.)