Christmas in Germany and Italy

After arriving back in Sagunto from País Vasco, it was one night in my dorm bed before heading out again into the wild blue yonder of Europe. This time though I had the luxury of knowing that someone waited for me at the other end of the flight and it wouldn’t be another four or five days of sketchy hostels and bocadillos for every meal. Friday morning I left for Italy to spend a week, including Christmas day, with my Uncle Jim and Aunt Dawna and cousin Jacob. Being that Ryanair is evil, it no longer flies into Venice from Valencia. This would have made my trip a lot easier and cheaper but whatever.

The journey to Jim and Dawna’s in Avion, Italy was not a fun one. For starters, it was raining in Valencia, and I mean raining. Since Ryanair is the cheap airline that it is, they didn’t move the loading gate up to the plane and instead we still had to walk out on the tarmac to the plane like always. The problem was that with so much rain, there was about one to one and half inches of water in puddles, streams, lakes, and rivers across the tarmac on the way to the plane. Add rain pouring on your head and it wasn’t pretty. Thankfully, I had my snow jacket with a good hood so only my jeans got really wet. But there were people boarding the plane that were completely soaked from head to food as the Ryanair personnel did nothing other than hand out paper towels with stressed smiles.

Because of the rain, we were late starting and finishing to board and ended up leaving an hour behind schedule. Not only did I have the stress of worrying about arriving in Italy in time to catch my train (which I didn’t) but I also had to deal with this two-year old that was screaming his head off next to me. Nothing his mom or dad could say or do made him shut up. He screamed the entire time we were boarding and preparing to depart. The only thing that actually put him to sleep was the takeoff. Once we were level in the air, I wondered what was different about the plane’s atmosphere and realized that it was the silence, the blessed silence. I looked down at the boy and he was conked out. Apparently the excitement of flying had kept him awake and cranky during his normal nap time. Another worrisome aspect to the takeoff was the huge thunderclap that resounded while we were waiting for takeoff. Such things combined with wet, possibly slippery runways and cheap airlines do NOT inspire confidence in flying.

Not withstanding, the rest of the flight was uneventful and I made it to Bergamo, Italy, a town outside of Milan. Outside the airport, I bought a bus ticket to the Bergamo train station, and had my most crowded public bus ride to date. So many people crammed their way into the bus at the first two stops that at one stop, the bus driver actually closed the exit doors before a man had time to make his way to the exit and the passengers had to call to the driver to not leave and to open the doors again. All the time while squished in this human sardine can, I kept wondering how I would know when the bus arrived at the train station. Thankfully, pretty much everyone left the bus at the station and I was able to recognize it as such. I bought my ticket without problems, but was still stressing once on the train because it wasn’t the original train that I had told Aunt Dawna I would be arriving on and plus, I wasn’t seated in the coach that was printed on my ticket, and what if my coach got switched off at some station and I ended up in some other part of Italy? To further complicate matters, no conductor ever stopped to look at my ticket so I couldn’t ask confirmation for whether I was on the right train. Since I had a stop-over where I switched trains, I thankfully had a chance to phone Dawna and inform her of my change of plans. Also, I made sure to match coach numbers on the second leg of the journey so I was a little less preoccupied for that part. And let me tell you, I’m not sure how many other feelings outrank the one you feel when you arrive in an unknown location to see someone waiting for you that you know and love. I was pretty darn happy to see Uncle Jim standing on the train platform.

He took me to their home and fed me supper/late-night snack and then took me on a tour of the house before letting me crash in a super-comfortable queen bed. Ah, the luxuries of actual homes as opposed to hostels and hotels. The next morning was spent packing and preparing everything to leave to head north. Uncle Jim, Jake, and I would be going to Garmisch, Germany for three days of skiing while Aunt Dawna stayed home with a cold and a very old and sick Bo (their golden lab retriever for the uninformed).

We left around 1pm and headed north through the Italian Alps, the Austrian Alps and into southern Germany. It was so gorgeous driving through that I kept forgetting to ask Uncle Jim to stop so I could take pictures. I just sat there staring out the window as we drove along chatting about every subject under the sun. The roads were nice too, a large portion of the time spent on the Autobahn. On the way, we drove through Innsbruck, Austria and also passed by a big huge dam that burst at one point, drowning a bunch of people in the valley below.

We arrived in Garmisch after dark and checked into the lodge before going to find something to eat. Garmisch is home to a US military base and the lodge we were staying in was actually an R&R station for US troops. Those coming back from various active duty sites, such as Iraq, have a chance to stay here and rest a bit before shipping stateside. Not only active duty members use it though; anybody in the military can come during their leaves and stay there with their family if they want. And it was nice lodge, let me tell you. One of the really cool things about it that Uncle Jim told me is that they charge different rates according to your military rank. It's cheaper for a private to stay there than for a lieutenant colonel. It was a little weird, to tell the truth, to be surrounded with so many Americans. It was you were in the US until you left the grounds and were in the rest of the town, which was distinctly German.

For supper the first night, we went to a typical German restaurant where the food and atmosphere was amazing. I definitely heard my German roots calling me. I had a pasta soup with a bread dumpling to eat and all of us had apple strudel for dessert. There are not words to describe this apple strudel. It probably had enough calories for an entire week but it was GOOD. Piping hot from the oven and served with ice cream that tasted like it was homemade from milk obtained just that morning from the cow and with whipped cream from the same cow. Absolutely heavenly. For entertainment, there were these two young boys would were dressed in the typical German knickers with suspenders and alpine hats that did a knee-slapping dance thing to guitar and accordian accompaniment. The other entertainment, or at least for us Americans, was trying to figure out what was happening in the back room. For every couple mintues, another group of two or three Germans would enter the restaurant and walk to the back room, all dressed in typical alpine wear. There were probably about 50 or 75 German men of all ages from 17 till 60s or 70s. We were trying to figure out what could possibly draw out 17-year-old Germans on a Saturday night and convince them to mean with old men and dress up in folk costume. Finally we came to the conclusion that it was the next meeting for German domination, but since we hadn't seen any short dark men with mustaches, we considered ourselves fairly safe. Until we saw the amount of beer that the waiters carried back into the meeting room. On the way back to the car to return to the hotel, we walked through the quaint streets and window shopped. I saw a yarn store but unfortunately it was closed and we never had time the rest of the trip to return.

Sunday through Tuesday were spent skiing the slopes during the day and relaxing and watching movies in the hotel room at night. Let me tell you, three days of snowboarding on European-length slopes that are not conducive to snowboarders will kill your thighs and calves. As the slopes were designed for skiers, there were many cat tracks that frequently went UPhill and many paddlebars and t-bars, which are not fun for snowboarders. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Especially Monday. That was the day we spent skiing the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitz. After lunch, Uncle Jim and I took the gondola up to the peak to take some pictures and so that I could say that I had been to the top of the highest mountain in Germany. Yay! However, I will confess something. I wasn't actually AT the top. I was 50 or so feet lower and only saw the top. But in my defense, it was the highest I could go (the rest of the way was currently blocked off, you can go to the tippy-top during the summer) and it was farther than any of the rest of my family back home has been. So there, hah!

Christmas Eve, we spent watching movies and contemplating what Santa would do if I got on his lap and told him (if it happened to be a young servicemember who was playing Santa) that what I wanted for Christmas was him. Tuesday, Christmas Day, we only skied for the morning from 8 till noon before packing up and getting back in the car to drive back home for Christmas dinner and presents. This was the day though that I went down a run next to gates for a run where the world cup was once held many years ago. That hill was freakingly steep. I seriously thought I was going to die. But I made it down, amazingly enough.

On the way home, we stopped at an Italian WWII graveyard, where apparently they would bury soldiers two deep to save on space.

Arriving home around 7pm, we ate a scrumptious Christmas dinner prepared by Dawna and then opened Christmas presents. Although it wasn't the same as being home, I was still really happy to be with family for Christmas day and still be able to have a tree and presents from home and Reese's Christmas trees. :)

The day after Christmas was spent in touring Venice. We took the train in and then just wandered through the streets, purposely getting lost on the way to St. Mark's square. The cathedral there is crazily ornate with huge mosaics on the ceiling that were made using 24k gold.

Supper was my first authentic taste of Italian pizza and it was amazing. I loved just walking around on the cobble stones, never knowing when buildings would give way to yet another picturesque canal. And Uncle Jim even convinced me that yes, I needed my picture taken with a gondolier.

However, we didn't take a gondola ride considering that rides run around 100€ a trip. One of the really interesting bridges that we saw was the "Sighing Bridge."

This bridge connected the city jail with the city court. It is an inclosed bridge to prevent escapes and afforded a last glimpse of freedom for guilty prisoners as they were led from the courts back into the prison. Many would sigh at the thought of all that they were losing, hence the name.

After Venice, it was off to Florence on Thursday to meet up Becky and experience more of Italy.

Northern Spain

In an attempt to take advantage of all my time off at Christmas, and since my plans to go to other "more exciting" (as it were) places in Europe weren't working out, I decided to go up to País Vasco and Navarro, two provinces in the north of Spain. I traveled with Adam Kotanko, another ACA student here in Spain. There's a possibility that Jenne or Jacque might know Adam since he's a senior at Andrews (journalism major, if you're curious). And before anyone starts wondering or making suggestions about our level of friendship, that's exactly what we were and what we are now, friends and nothing more.

We left Sunday by train and headed for Zaragoza, where we had a two-hour layover before hopping aboard a train for Bilbao. I had heard that Bilbao was little more than a big, cold industrial city in País Vasco, and I was told right. The first night we got in late and did nothing more than find our hostel and watch some spanish TV. Monday dawned grey, cold, and dreary but that didn't stop us from heading our to "see" the town.

The old-part of Bilbao is pretty cool with its cobbled streets and old churches, but it would have been better without the misty rain and without the lesson that churches close for visiting hours during the afternoon.

So we did a lot of walking, saw the OUTSIDE of a lot of buildings, and decided that it was a sin that a city as big and as centralized as Bilbao did not have the Starbucks that we both developed a craving for while walking around in the cold. Another thing that bothered me was the old cemetery that we walked past was locked up and I couldn't go wander through the old gravestones.

Tuesday was a much better day. Better weather and better agenda. We got relatively early to go to the bus station before starting our sightseeing so that we could buy a bus ticket to San Sebastian for that night. After that, we headed to the Guggenheim Museum, a contemporary and modern art museum that's housed in a stellar building made of titanium.

I really liked the outside, and in spite of some misgivings about people's ideas of modern "art," enjoyed most of the exhibits as well. One of the cool things about the Guggenheim was that while we were there, all the temporary exhibits were filled with American contemporary/modern art because they were hosting a 200+ years of American art exhibit that I forget the name of now.

I definitely encountered those exhibits of one square placed upon another and labeled art, but there were also pieces of art that while I might not have grasped the entire meaning of the work, at least looked like something that required talent and couldn't have been done by one of Mom's preschoolers. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of most of my favorite pieces since photography was prohibited in this museum, but I do have a couple pictures that I was able to take surreptiously from unseen corners. There's the modern representation of Venus de Milo (thumbs up);

the digital pillars with spanish and english poetry scrolling by on the front and basque poetry scrolling on the back, representing the oppression and brief outlawing of the basque language (thumbs up);

the big huge wavy and spirally walls of iron (not sure about this one),

the flower puppy outside (thumbs up),

the big spider outside (thumbs up even though creepy),

the metallic tulips [?] outside (thumbs up),

and hanging light bulbs with pile of licorice candy that I really wanted to steal (thumbs down).

After the Guggenheim, we grabbed some Subway for lunch, and then wandered some more and saw some cool bridges before heading for the bus station.

At the bus station, I was reminded of Jacque's Greyhound experience as our bus arrived an HOUR late. Besides having to wait, it was frustrating to constantly be worrying if somehow we had missed our bus and were waiting in vain. While waiting and complaining, we met an elderly couple from Philadelphia who come to Spain every winter. They offered to help us find our way to the hostel in San Sebastian and in spite of a few disagreements on their part about when to get off the public bus in San Sebastian and which way to go on a street, we made it safely to our hostel and enjoyed some tips about what to do in San Sebastian.

On Wednesday, we made a full tour of San Sebastian, seeing the cathedral (which had an oyster holy water container, how cool is that),

another smaller church with a really cool ceiling where we actually got to listen to an organist practicing on the pipe organ,

the two beaches famous for surfing in the summer (with absolutely NO waves in the winter),

climbed to the top of a mountain where we had a view of San Sebastian

and were able to go through a free museum on the history of San Sebastian and get a closeup of the big Jesus statue,

visited the wind combs (more pieces of modern "art" I don't understand but are famous),

see the summer home of the Spanish royalty,

and curse the lack of kebab restaurants in San Sebastian. I did, though, have my best-so-far Spanish tortilla sandwich in a San Sebastian bar. For those who have never had the fortune of eating a Spanish tortilla, it's basically a big plate-sized fried patty of egg, potatoe, and onion that kind of resembles an omelet but not really. They slice it up and put it between baguette-type bread and it's quite scrumptious, especially when they also put tomatoe and garlic in the sandwich. Another bit of Spanish and also European trivia, bars frequently serve lunch items as well as function like American bars in the evening/night.

Friday morning started WAY too early as we left the hostel at 6 to walk about a mile to our bus stop to leave at 7am for Pamplona, Navarra. Pamplona is home to the world-famous running of the bulls on July 7. The most recognized corrido de toros in Spain, it celebrates the festival of San Fermín and if you want to attend, you have to reserve your hotels about a year in advance. Crazy huh? So we decided to go the cheaper way and visit it on our way back to Sagunto.

There's pretty much nothing in Pamplona except for the famous plaza de toros so we went there,

took some pictures, walked through the artisan's fair inside, walked the street where they run the bulls,

and went to the train station. On the train on the way back to Sagunto, I slept and knitted on a scarf for my roommate and reflected on the trip.

I decided that I like the north of Spain but mainly the countryside version and I would love to go back to San Sebastian in the summer.

Paris in a nutshell . . . a very large nutshell

In order to actually get this blog published, I'm going to take you on a whirlwind tour of Paris. There will be pictures, names, and short descriptions and anecdotes. Welcome aboard.

Tuesday morning, we decided to start with the Sacre Coeur, a cathedral built with Moorish influences, that doesn't really seem like a Christian church at all, but looks like a Muslim temple from outside.

Perched on a hill overlooking Paris, it's a beautiful structure with snippity guards who thankfully don't speak Spanish. :D Lesson: When told not to do something in Paris, pretend to not speak English or French, and only mutter in Spanish. This enabled me to keep most of my pictures of the Sacre Coeur's interior.

After the Sacre Coeur, which left you with a feeling a reverence, we went for a complete change in atmosphere and headed for the Moulin Rouge. Appropriately situated in the red light of Paris, the Moulin Rouge was a bit of a disappointment.

While there was a windmill, it wasn't THAT big and all in all, I wasn't impressed. What did impress me were the banana and nutella crepes that we bought from a stand next to the Moulin Rouge. Absolutely amazing. If you go to Paris, go buy crepes from the stand on the street corner to the right of the Moulin Rouge.

After we finished our scrumptious crepes, we headed down through the streets in the general direction of the Louvre. In route we saw some cool churchs, a theatre, and the Opera Garnier. This building is cool enough that we didn't realize that we were entering through the back until a guard told us to exit and go around the building.

After taking pictures in front, we went inside to see if we could purchase entrance tickets. We could have, but as there was a rehearsal taking place, we wouldn't have been able to go in the main auditorium, just the lobbies, and hallways. That didn't make it worth it for me to buy tickets so we went on our merry little way. In case you didn't know, the Opera Garnier is the opera house where the story of the Phantom of the Opera was set.

Before we arrived at the Louvre, we passed through the ritzy, brand-name shopping district with its 5-star hotels and such. We also passed Godiva Chocolatiers and I would have stopped to buy chocolate except it was croweded at the time and also, I'm going to Belgium later. Why buy it in Paris when I'll be in Brussels itself?

Once we arrived at the Louvre, we weren't actually at the Louvre itself. Instead we were at the other end of the Tuileries Gardens where you can find two other smaller museums. One is the L'Orangerie (or something like that) with Monet's water lilies collections and I don't remember the other. As it was Tuesday, the museum was closed. Although we didn't go inside, I did have a narrow escape with a lion outside.

From the gardens, we continued down past the huge busy square with an Egyptian obelisk. This square also happened to be the same square that housed the infamous guillotine. Our chosen direction took us up the Champs-Élysées. After wandering past all the pretty boutiques and expensive brand-name stores, we arrived at the Arc de Triomphe.

Situated in the Place de Charles de Gaulle, cars zoom past in a 5/6-"lane" roundabout. I put lane in quotations because while 5 to 6 lanes would fit, and they most certainly drove that way, there are no lines painted. The only access to the Arc is through a pedestrian tunnel, unless of course you would like to risk your life trying to cross the roundabout. Located underneath the Arc is the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with a perpetually burning flame.

After grabbing some lunch on the Champs-Élysées, we hopped a train for Versailles. Unknowingly, we only purchased an in-city metro ticket in order to get out to Versailles because the commuter train system of Paris runs through the same stations as the metro. So we caught a metro to a connection with the train and then rode it out to Versailles. As we weren't using the right tickets, when we attempted to leave the station, the turnstiles wouldn't let us out. Considering that the station inside the city don't make you use your tickets to exit, we didn't know what to do. Not wanting to pay a fine for not buying the right ticket, we ducked under the turnstile and made our way on to the Versailles. We were lucky that time that no one caught us. After I left Ally in Paris (she wanted to stay an extra day to go to Disneyland Paris), she got caught in the same situation and had to pay a 25€ fine. Ouch.

The gardens at Versailles are free and were pretty although I really want to go back and see them in spring, just like the rest of the parks and gardens in Europe that I've seen so far.

The only downside to the gardens in winter is that many of the statues are all winterized with canvas coverings, which while amusing to look at, don't give you an authentic feel for the place.

Probably the most frustrating part of our entire time in Paris happened next. We thought that the Palace itself (with the King's and Queen's apartments and the Hall of Mirrors) closed at 6:30pm. So we left the gardens at 4:30 to go enter. We bought our tickets and then when we went to another desk to grab maps of the building, were told that the museum was actually closing at FIVE pm, and we would have only half an hour to view the apartments and the hall. We hurriedly walked through the light rain that began to fall to the entrance to the palace and fretted while standing in the security line. Once inside, we weren't sure which door to enter inspite of the maps we had and took a guess. Thankfully it was the right building. However, as we were speed-walking through the Prince's apartments, I asked a security guard for directions to the Hall of Mirrors. This is when we heard the dreaded words that it had already been closed and the section we were in was the only one open. Needless to say, we were angry and frustrated at the ticket office people for not warning about this (let's just say the tickets hadn't been cheap) and started enjoying the rooms we were walking through. Once we reached the end of them, we noticed a big grand staircase that people were coming down. Knowing that the Hall was upstairs, we disregarded the sign saying "Do Not Enter" and went up the stairs.

If people were coming down, why couldn't we go up since we'd paid our fair share? The worst that could happen would be if a guard came up to us and physically stopped us from going up. Which thankfully, no one did. Then it was like a fish against the current as we went through the Queen's apartments from the wrong direction. But we made it to the Hall of Mirrors in time to walk the entire length and take pictures in an uncrowed atmosphere, since most of the other visitors had already been herded in the direction of the exit.

After that, we went slowly back through the Queen's apartments, taking more pictures. After making it to the Hall and through the apartments, I understand why they close earlier in winter--the light from outside is of a crummy quality. So while I really don't have that great of pictures, at least I HAVE pictures and I have the memories, whether good (the Hall) or bad (the employees). Eh, sie la vive, or however those French say it.

After Versailles, we headed back to Paris (this time paying the actual price) and had kebabs for supper. During which this poor guy was embarrassed by his friends when, after confirming that we spoke English, they made him come up to us and try to start a conversation to practice his English. Unfortunately, the poor guy was so embarrassed he couldn't say anything. Ally and I didn't know what to say either beyond "hi" and "what's your name" since he wasn't carrying his own side of the conversation.

Wednesday dawned bright and early for us as we headed to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to be there when it opened in an attempt to avoid the forecasted year-round crowds. We arrived 10 minutes before the ticket offices opened and ended up only waiting roughly 30 minutes before we were in an elevator headed to the top of the tower. I had thought that the early morning light would be excellent for views of the city, but apparently Paris is a hazy little place.

But no worries, I still enjoyed my time up at the top, took lots of pictures, found out that New York is 5849 km from the tower,

and mailed a postcard to my parents from the first level of the tower.

After descending the tower, we took more pictures out front of the tower, were accosted by the immigrants who believe all English-speakers are rich and want to donate to their cause, bought and ate lunch within sight of the tower, and relaxed before heading off for the next part of Paris.

On our way to Notre Dame, we stopped in the Luxembourg Gardens, beautiful even in winter,

Paris' version of the Pantheon,

and the Latin Quarter. I was a little disappointed in the Latin Quarter as it seemed to me just like any other small shopping district, but whatever. Maybe there's more life in the summer.

Notre Dame was not a disappointment.

The cathedral soars above you and makes you feel pretty insignificant. Also, the gargoyles are fascinating and reminded me of the TV show from oh-so-long-ago where they would come to life at night and go flying about the city doing I don't remember what.

Inside the cathedral is magnificent too, even to someone oversaturated with European cathedrals. One of the fun parts of traveling Europe at Christmas is seeing all the different Nativity Scenes that each church and cathedral put up.

After Notre Dame, we rested our little feetsies before walking to the square of the Bastille. On the way, I saw a cheese shop and took a picture, just for you, Jenne.

Unfortunately, the prison no longer stands and all there is to commemorate it is a pillar, but for the history factor, it was still worth the visit for me. From there we caught a metro down to the Eiffel Tower again so that we could see it at night. It's just as amazing at night as during the day, and it even has lights that sparkle for 10 minutes every hour. We took pictures of it as normally lit up, went to go have pastries and coffee in a cafe within site, and then returned to take more pictures/videos as it sparkled. Freezing cold, but worth it.

For our last day in Paris, and this was somewhat badly planned, we went to the Louvre.

I say badly planned not because we didn't have enough time inside, but because we were tired and lasted a shorter time than we probably could have been capable of if we had visited it our first day. Nevertheless, we made it to almost all the exhibits open and definitely saw the big pieces. Such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace,

Venus de Milo,

the Code of Hammurabi,

and the Mona Lisa. Speaking of which, I'm really not a fan of Mona. It's just a small portrait of an ordinary woman and her smile isn't really that intriguing. Not only that, but they only let the school groups actually get close to look at her.

I was more interested in some the HUGE paintings they had displayed (you never realize from textbooks just how big they are) and watching local art students/artisans sitting in the halls of the Louvre, copying the masters.

My major disappointment with the Louvre was that the wing for the Dutch painters was closed off and I couldn't see as much Rembrandt, etc as I wanted.

After the Louvre, we split ways as I went back to the Opera Garnier to see if they were having reheasals that day and Ally went to the Monet museum. Unfortunately, the auditorium was still closed but I did get some more pictures of the main lobby. Fortunately, I was able to lust after the Godiva chocolate again (although I didn't buy anything because I didn't know any French to fight my way through the crowd at the counter) and this time sneak a picture of the chocolate-dipped strawberries. Mmmmmm...

Ally and I met up again at her next hostel (she had changed for her next two nights in Paris) and there we parted ways for the last time, she to stay before meeting up with other friends in Amsterdam and me back to Valencia. Thankfully, I had no problems catching my shuttle bus back to the airport, and the flight caused me no problems either.

And that's Paris, my friends!