I wanted to save a few bucks so rather than flying from Berlin to Barcelona, I took two night trains with a "layover" in Paris. Who said you can't see Paris in one day? My train arrived late because a German railworker jumped in front of our train, committing suicide, in the middle of the night. I slept through the whole thing.
I met a guy from Paris and I tried to have a conversation in French but it quickly turned into English because my French is worthless. He told me how to see all of Paris in a day.
I started at the Bastille and walked to the Cathedral de Notre Dame and Hotel De Ville, then to the Louvre (but didnt go in), through the gardens at Touleries (not in season so everything was rather brown and dead), down the Champs d'elysee to go window shopping at Louis Vuitton. Then through the arc de triomphe where I met some crazy fashion and design students from London. Three of the guys were wearing trendy shoes with pointed toe (one guy had gold shoes) and ladies trench coats with cashmere scarfs with very stylish haircuts (basically a side mullet) and carrying HUGE leather handbags. These guys were hilarious! We paid too much money to go up to the top of the Eiffle Tower as it was snowing and cold but awesome views. Then, the strobe lights came on and made the whole tower glitter - totally awesome! Then I had to get back to the train station to go to Barcelona since I nearly missed my night train the night before. Something about hopping right on the train makes me think I can arrived at the departure time whereas on planes you have to get there super early. Another day without a shower wearing the same clothes, oh well.
My sister, Anne, and i are in Barcelona and last night was carnival - crazy party! It starts in Cadiz, Spain and moves up to Barcelona but since the event is so big Barcelona cant host it so they moved it to a small town 20 miles away. We went with a large and noisy group, dressed as flamenco dancers with bright red lipstick. it was a blast! My noise-maker blew out before we got off the train - i felt bad for the other people on the train. "Carnival! Carnival! Carnival! Carnival!" "What are you watch out for?..." Our group (an Italian, a couple brits, canadians, kiwis, and americans) were yelling the whole time.
Well we are off to the outdoor Barcelona zoo and world class aquarium. The weather is beautiful, blue skies and temps in the 60s. Too bad I wont get this weather for a couple months when i get back. Boo! It is refreshing to not wear long johns for the first time in two weeks!
I am off to valencia, seville, madrid, and then amsterdam and home.
Adios!
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
In a nutshell
Ok so the good and then the bad...
GOOD: Went to short track speedskating, front row, talked to US short track skater JP´s mom and said hi to Apollo Ohno, met the US figure skating pair and the US ice dancing chick and two US short track olympians
BAD: Got on the bus to go back to the hotel and was chatting when I heard my purse zipper open and before I knew it my camera was gone
GOOD: I had switched my 256 MB memory card to a small one 10 photos before so I didn´t lose much
BAD: While filing a report with the Torino police, I missed my train to Milan
GOOD: I met some business people who graduated from Notre Dame and were working with AT&T and bought me a few Jack and coke´s because they felt sorry for me and let me stay in their companies extra hotel room since I was homeless
BAD: Missed another A.M. train to Milan since I stayed up half the night
GOOD: Caught the next train to Milan, then the train to Brig, Switzerland, then the Matterhorn Express train to Zermatt, Switzerland.
BAD: White out conditions for two days
GOOD: Amazing snowboarding in the number one place in all of Europe!!!! One run was over 13 kms, or like 8 miles!
BAD: EXPENSIVE!!! Threw off the budget a bit!
GOOD: Apres Ski!!!!! Little restaurants and bars with live music inside and a DJ and fire pits on the patio, cheap drinks, and lots of fun. I met the nicest couple from San Fran, the only other Americans in the packed house, who were writing the trip off for business and, once again, bought all the drinks. Why don´t I get trips paid for?
BAD: Putting on the boots, gloves, and board three hours later.... haha that was fun!
GOOD: The blue sky that appeared out of nowhere when it was a total white-out on my LAST run of the day. Then, suddenly, to my left was the beautiful, towering, massive, pyramidal KLEIN MATTERHORN rising above all the other mountains while I slalomed for a half hour to the little alpine village of Zermatt, just in time for my train to Berlin, Germany.
BAD: Night trains
GOOD: Seeing my Macalester roommate Eric Kelsey in Berlin and hanging out in an awesome city for the next week.
Love you all! Keep in touch
Katie
PS there wont be any new photos for a while for obvious reasons. I did buy some cheap cameras so i wont be pictureless :)
GOOD: Went to short track speedskating, front row, talked to US short track skater JP´s mom and said hi to Apollo Ohno, met the US figure skating pair and the US ice dancing chick and two US short track olympians
BAD: Got on the bus to go back to the hotel and was chatting when I heard my purse zipper open and before I knew it my camera was gone
GOOD: I had switched my 256 MB memory card to a small one 10 photos before so I didn´t lose much
BAD: While filing a report with the Torino police, I missed my train to Milan
GOOD: I met some business people who graduated from Notre Dame and were working with AT&T and bought me a few Jack and coke´s because they felt sorry for me and let me stay in their companies extra hotel room since I was homeless
BAD: Missed another A.M. train to Milan since I stayed up half the night
GOOD: Caught the next train to Milan, then the train to Brig, Switzerland, then the Matterhorn Express train to Zermatt, Switzerland.
BAD: White out conditions for two days
GOOD: Amazing snowboarding in the number one place in all of Europe!!!! One run was over 13 kms, or like 8 miles!
BAD: EXPENSIVE!!! Threw off the budget a bit!
GOOD: Apres Ski!!!!! Little restaurants and bars with live music inside and a DJ and fire pits on the patio, cheap drinks, and lots of fun. I met the nicest couple from San Fran, the only other Americans in the packed house, who were writing the trip off for business and, once again, bought all the drinks. Why don´t I get trips paid for?
BAD: Putting on the boots, gloves, and board three hours later.... haha that was fun!
GOOD: The blue sky that appeared out of nowhere when it was a total white-out on my LAST run of the day. Then, suddenly, to my left was the beautiful, towering, massive, pyramidal KLEIN MATTERHORN rising above all the other mountains while I slalomed for a half hour to the little alpine village of Zermatt, just in time for my train to Berlin, Germany.
BAD: Night trains
GOOD: Seeing my Macalester roommate Eric Kelsey in Berlin and hanging out in an awesome city for the next week.
Love you all! Keep in touch
Katie
PS there wont be any new photos for a while for obvious reasons. I did buy some cheap cameras so i wont be pictureless :)
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Curling and luge and a kick ass party!
Olympic photos (20)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=z6muajd.avszjii1&x=1&y=epb3l2
I woke up this "moring" at 3:30PM. It was a long day!
We woke up early yesterday to go to Pinerolo to see curling. The security to get through was 100 times more strict than the snowboarding half pipe the day before - maybe they think there is a bigger terrorist threat for curlers, who knows. Our seats were next to the families of the curlers - about 50 people - mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin. They were decked out in patriotic gear - kinda like the 4th of July in February. The US team beat Norway, 11 to 6. I cant really explain the rules but it is like lawn bowling or botche ball but with ice and a lot more strategy and skill. The largest curling club is guess where... St Paul on Selby and Snelling. Who knew?! I'll have to check it out when i get back. We went out to lunch with the group and two of the people had tickets to luge that they werent going to use because the USA mens curling team had another game that night. Anne and I kindly offered to take them off their back. It took two hours to get from the curling venue to the luge and we were NOT properly dressed to stand outside for three hours but we didnt care.
The luge was fascinating. We had to watch most of the race from the jumbotron and then for the split second that the luger sped by your part of the track you could watch them. There were tons of accidents and one US luger went unconscious when she hit on the corner that we were standing at (i had just snapped a photo) and she was like spaghetti flying down the rest of the track - really scary! How would one get interested in luge? Crazy! We took the train back through the mountains down to Torino and ate pizza (a staple, cheap dinner). Anne had to catch the last train back to Milan at 10:50pm and she found a travel partner because we ran into the chick we met at halfpipe from Salt Lake who was also going on the last train.
Paul and I, my friend from Long Island who I met in Florence, went back to the hotel to get ready for the big snowboarding party. The US women took gold and silver earlier that day and the men did the same the day before. We took the metro and waited 25 minutes for a bus before we realized that there werent any running. We started walking and 30 minutes later we stumbled upon John's Garage and the party. It was a very chill party! They had snowboard videos playing on the jumbo projector, a sweet DJ, and good drinks. Atleast half of the people there were related to Danny Kass (the siver medalist) and he was there chillin too. There was only one bathroom - which proved interesting later in the night - but with less than 100 people it was ok. I met Danny and chatted for a while with his brother and cousins. Amazing! Super chill people! My new friends from Berkeley and Seattle that I met at the luge stumbled in at 430am - crazy how you keep running into people! We all took a cab back to the train station near where we are staying at no earlier than 630am.
It is 5 pm now and i still havent had breakfast. I suppose it is a lost cause. I did get on the Today Show around 8 am your time and got a pic of Katie Couric. What a freakin great night!!
Ciao!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=z6muajd.avszjii1&x=1&y=epb3l2
I woke up this "moring" at 3:30PM. It was a long day!
We woke up early yesterday to go to Pinerolo to see curling. The security to get through was 100 times more strict than the snowboarding half pipe the day before - maybe they think there is a bigger terrorist threat for curlers, who knows. Our seats were next to the families of the curlers - about 50 people - mostly from Minnesota and Wisconsin. They were decked out in patriotic gear - kinda like the 4th of July in February. The US team beat Norway, 11 to 6. I cant really explain the rules but it is like lawn bowling or botche ball but with ice and a lot more strategy and skill. The largest curling club is guess where... St Paul on Selby and Snelling. Who knew?! I'll have to check it out when i get back. We went out to lunch with the group and two of the people had tickets to luge that they werent going to use because the USA mens curling team had another game that night. Anne and I kindly offered to take them off their back. It took two hours to get from the curling venue to the luge and we were NOT properly dressed to stand outside for three hours but we didnt care.
The luge was fascinating. We had to watch most of the race from the jumbotron and then for the split second that the luger sped by your part of the track you could watch them. There were tons of accidents and one US luger went unconscious when she hit on the corner that we were standing at (i had just snapped a photo) and she was like spaghetti flying down the rest of the track - really scary! How would one get interested in luge? Crazy! We took the train back through the mountains down to Torino and ate pizza (a staple, cheap dinner). Anne had to catch the last train back to Milan at 10:50pm and she found a travel partner because we ran into the chick we met at halfpipe from Salt Lake who was also going on the last train.
Paul and I, my friend from Long Island who I met in Florence, went back to the hotel to get ready for the big snowboarding party. The US women took gold and silver earlier that day and the men did the same the day before. We took the metro and waited 25 minutes for a bus before we realized that there werent any running. We started walking and 30 minutes later we stumbled upon John's Garage and the party. It was a very chill party! They had snowboard videos playing on the jumbo projector, a sweet DJ, and good drinks. Atleast half of the people there were related to Danny Kass (the siver medalist) and he was there chillin too. There was only one bathroom - which proved interesting later in the night - but with less than 100 people it was ok. I met Danny and chatted for a while with his brother and cousins. Amazing! Super chill people! My new friends from Berkeley and Seattle that I met at the luge stumbled in at 430am - crazy how you keep running into people! We all took a cab back to the train station near where we are staying at no earlier than 630am.
It is 5 pm now and i still havent had breakfast. I suppose it is a lost cause. I did get on the Today Show around 8 am your time and got a pic of Katie Couric. What a freakin great night!!
Ciao!
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Olympics!
Hey folks!
I am at the Torino Olympics (as you probably know) and I went to the men's halfpipe today (look for Anne and I on TV in the stands by a big USA flag and a girl in a pink hat). It was amazing!! Those guys get big air and doing crazy McTwists and 1080 degree spins!
We saw a women's hockey game yesterday (Russia vs Sweden) and tomorrow we are off to curling - anyone know anything about it cuz i don't!
Wednesday, I have an amazing ticket to short track speedskating in the FRONT ROW with a photographer that i met today!!! Not to shabby! I think I am going to scratch my travel plans to the French Riviera and chill in Turin - this press pass is money and the town is bumpin (especially the Bud pyramid/tent parties)!
Love ya, ciao!
Katie
I am at the Torino Olympics (as you probably know) and I went to the men's halfpipe today (look for Anne and I on TV in the stands by a big USA flag and a girl in a pink hat). It was amazing!! Those guys get big air and doing crazy McTwists and 1080 degree spins!
We saw a women's hockey game yesterday (Russia vs Sweden) and tomorrow we are off to curling - anyone know anything about it cuz i don't!
Wednesday, I have an amazing ticket to short track speedskating in the FRONT ROW with a photographer that i met today!!! Not to shabby! I think I am going to scratch my travel plans to the French Riviera and chill in Turin - this press pass is money and the town is bumpin (especially the Bud pyramid/tent parties)!
Love ya, ciao!
Katie
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Hockey game
We met some awesome USA Today journalists at the Bud party last night and got tickets to the hockey game, what we thought was the US but rather Sweden vs Russia at 3pm local time. I'll wave to the cameras. Life as a journalist is sweet! Ciao!
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Firenze and Venezia
Ciao! The Ponte Vecchio in Florence was picturesque, especially from the top of the piazzale michelangelo, but not as impressive as Michelangelos famous Davids perfect body! I met tons of new friends, mostly Aussie, at the hostel and we saw the superbowl at an irish pub with tons of other american study abroad kids and i spend the whole first half explaining them how they game is played, it was awful. needless to say we left after halftime because we were all bored.
I decided to go to Venice and it was amazying! Unlike anything you could imagine. The gondolas and the vaporetti get everyone and everything around like clockwork. The beautiful Basilica of Saint Mark has gold tiles and wonderful mosaics, similar to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, but better.
I arrived in Torino this evening and I just missed the Olympic Torch, but hopefully will see it enter the stadium tomorrow at the Opening Ceremonies (from the outside). We found some cheap one star hotel for 50 euro a night!! We met some people in the press and we are going to go to some practices for cheap and maybe an event or two.
Ciao!
Miss you all!
Katie
I decided to go to Venice and it was amazying! Unlike anything you could imagine. The gondolas and the vaporetti get everyone and everything around like clockwork. The beautiful Basilica of Saint Mark has gold tiles and wonderful mosaics, similar to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, but better.
I arrived in Torino this evening and I just missed the Olympic Torch, but hopefully will see it enter the stadium tomorrow at the Opening Ceremonies (from the outside). We found some cheap one star hotel for 50 euro a night!! We met some people in the press and we are going to go to some practices for cheap and maybe an event or two.
Ciao!
Miss you all!
Katie
Friday, February 03, 2006
Prego!
Ciao! Prego! Pizza! That pretty much sums up my time in Italy so far. I had a long ferry ride and a longer train trip to get to Pompeii (four transfers, but eh, it was cheap). We saw the sights a Pompeii - Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79AD and covered the place in ash - 25 ft deep so naturally, everyone died by asphyxiation and the city was covered up for 1700 years before someone trying to put in a road accidently found it. The mosaics from the brothels were the highlight but the Villa dei Mysteri also had beautiful frescoes and was totally intact (even with a secret passage). We ran into some high school Italians who were asking us direction and then we spent the next 20 minutes trying to communicate throwing out every foreign word we all knew. It was hilarious - at a pause in the conversation when we were flipping through our phrase books and typing in words to the translator, the Italian guy said "Me, very stupid!" Followed by, "Metal-leek" (and then he started signing a Metalica song - so random)
Rome is not as big as you would think. We walked at least 5 miles the first day alone and saw the Roman and Imperial Forums (aka more ruins), Ampitheater (aka Colosseum) and the beautiful and intact Arch of Constantine, Pantheon, many piazzas and dozens of fountains. Last night we were planning on sleeping on the floor of a hotel that one of the Purdue guys friends is staying at but that did not work out so much and at 11:30pm I was walking the streets with at 40 pound pack trying to find somewhere to stay. I was tempted to go into the only Irish Pub in town (that I happened to wander by where there were lots of American students) but the pack was preventing me from getting through the door.
Today I tried to meet my friends again to see the Vatican but by planning "to meet by the front" was a bad idea considering it is a whole country and it is surprisingly large. However, we managed to run into each other. I met these three guys in Athens, somehow found them in Patras to catch the ferry, left each other to go to Pompeii and found each other the next morning on the sidewalk going to the site, then, separated again so I could see Napoli and met up at a hostel in Rome, then separated last night and ran into each other and climbed to the top of the dome in St. Peter.
The Sistine Chapel was as awesome as they say - over 15,000 people see it each day! The museums were filled with so much stuff that I feel like I never really have to see any more museums again - especially greek and roman statues! The Basilica di San Pietro was the most impressive. Michelangelos masterpiece, Pieta, was the highlight, followed by the 350 step spiral stairs to the top of the dome (magnificent views inside of the mosaics and outside of the whole city). Tonight I am off to the Spanish Steps for a good ol backpacker pub crawl. Good thing the agenda for tomorrow is "count how many fountains there are in Rome." No small task but very relaxing!
Ciao!
Katie
Rome is not as big as you would think. We walked at least 5 miles the first day alone and saw the Roman and Imperial Forums (aka more ruins), Ampitheater (aka Colosseum) and the beautiful and intact Arch of Constantine, Pantheon, many piazzas and dozens of fountains. Last night we were planning on sleeping on the floor of a hotel that one of the Purdue guys friends is staying at but that did not work out so much and at 11:30pm I was walking the streets with at 40 pound pack trying to find somewhere to stay. I was tempted to go into the only Irish Pub in town (that I happened to wander by where there were lots of American students) but the pack was preventing me from getting through the door.
Today I tried to meet my friends again to see the Vatican but by planning "to meet by the front" was a bad idea considering it is a whole country and it is surprisingly large. However, we managed to run into each other. I met these three guys in Athens, somehow found them in Patras to catch the ferry, left each other to go to Pompeii and found each other the next morning on the sidewalk going to the site, then, separated again so I could see Napoli and met up at a hostel in Rome, then separated last night and ran into each other and climbed to the top of the dome in St. Peter.
The Sistine Chapel was as awesome as they say - over 15,000 people see it each day! The museums were filled with so much stuff that I feel like I never really have to see any more museums again - especially greek and roman statues! The Basilica di San Pietro was the most impressive. Michelangelos masterpiece, Pieta, was the highlight, followed by the 350 step spiral stairs to the top of the dome (magnificent views inside of the mosaics and outside of the whole city). Tonight I am off to the Spanish Steps for a good ol backpacker pub crawl. Good thing the agenda for tomorrow is "count how many fountains there are in Rome." No small task but very relaxing!
Ciao!
Katie
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