* Finally updated!!!
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| Oh hey Spring Break |
Hey everyone!!! I’m sorry about not updating in a while- I just got back from spring break (Ok, I got back Sunday, but I was busy ok??)!!
But I’m going to begin by saying I had an extremely awesome spring break. It may not have been your typical “aw yea spring break yeaaaa im in Cabo woooo!!!!!” spring break (next year), but Vienna, Berlin, and Krackow were some of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. Oh, and let me say if you think it’s impossible to pack for ten days in one backpack (I didn’t want to pay the small fortune to check anything), you are wrong, my friend. I have defied the impossible J (though I would be hated on my the characters of “Mean Girls” for my many outfit repeats…).
So we (my three roommates Frankie, Marie, Julia, and I) embarked on our adventure on that Friday after I posted. We left at 3:30 AM (so we basically didn’t go to sleep…). But we wanted to get to the airport early because there was a plane strike in Rome. To our luck, that didn’t affect us- but it did for a lot of other travelers that day.
Our first destination was Vienna, Austria. Native language: German. I have no background in the German language at all, so it was crazy to be in a country where I had absolutely no idea at all how to communicate (except for “Danke,” but even then I would accidentally say “grazie”…ugh). Luckily there were a lot of English speakers, and Marie could speak some German.
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| undergound train routes.... what does it all say????? |
But we were easily able to find our hostel called “Wombat.” This was actually my first hostel experience. It was an extremely nice hostel (with a bar underneath!!); we got 6-person room with a bathroom and lockers. So it was us four girls and two Brazilian guys who im pretty sure thought we were out of our minds. It was very odd for me to have to share a room with these two complete strangers, but that’s all part of the European hostel experience! After we got settled we walked around the city for a little bit and we went shopping (and maybe might have possibly went to a Starbucks… they don’t have them in Italy, needed to get my fix ok??).
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| walking around |
Later that night we met up with our guy friends who were visiting Vienna for a few days as well (but their plane got delayed because of the strike). We tried to find this restaurant called Camelot (that was basically dinner and a show), but were not able to find it (we walked for a while…) until it closed. We then settled for a Kebab place right by our hostel (ask me about the kebab places sometime, I will surely miss them when I return home). The good news is, by that time, Friday was over so I could actually have meat! Woooo!!
The next day we went to Salzburg- where the famous “Sound of Music” was filmed (unfortunately we were too late to take the tour, but I guess I’ll just have to go back). But we had to take a train to get there- it was around 3 hours away. So we bought a ticket from the train station- a 30 euro one-way ticket! It was a rip-off but we really wanted to go, so we bought it. We boarded a train that we thought was ours- turns out it was a private company. But we could purchase a ticket from them for 9 euro to Salzburg. 9 euro?? We were pretty upset that we didn’t know about this train sooner. But we took that one back- so it half worked out.
But anyways, Salzburg was really cool- Mozart’s home was here (even though he hated it there…)! It was really pretty. The weather could have been better but it was really fun to walk around the area. We went to a place called “Mozart Café” for lunch (where Mozart ate… ok just kidding), and I had my first “schnitzel!” Good stuff. Oh, and because it was Sunday I had some chocolate…..mmmm. Later that night the whole group went to out to dinner at a traditional Viennese restaurant. I had a turkey curry rice dish- It was really good.
The next day was pretty low-key; Julia, Marie and I went to the Sigmund Freud museum. It was pretty cool because it was where he had actually lived. It was also interesting to read about his life. We then went shopping (I got 6 euro shoes- woooo!) and relaxed until our 9 pm flight to Berlin.
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| Freud's study!! |
The flight to Berlin was pretty short, to prep myself for the new city, I listened to “99 Red Balloons,” and “Scotty Doesn’t Know” (shout-out to my wolfpack!) on the way there. We got there pretty late so we headed straight to the hostel -St. Christopher’s hostel (which also had a bar! Coincidence…) and passed out. This was a 16 person room! But it was kind of nice because each part of the bunk beds were enclosed and had a curtain that you could draw- it was like my own little room! Although there were crazy French and Italian people next to us who would loudly come back at like 4:30 am (but it was ok, because French and Italian were welcomed languages by me- I could kind of understand them!)
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| Oh hey Berlin! |
The next day we woke up for the free breakfast offered by the hostel. We then went on this free tour (tips encouraged, though) of the city. It was an awesome tour. Our tour guide took us all around the city and explained important and funny facts. We went to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, which was really powerful. It’s somewhat hard to describe (see pictures), but the meaning of it was left up to our interpretation. We also saw the Brandenburg Gates, The Reichstag, where Hitler’s bunker was located (in a nondescript parking lot), the Book Burning memorial, Checkpoint Charlie (extremely touristy), Potsdamer Platz, SS Headquarters, The Berlin Wall, the TV Tower, Museum Island, Lustgarten, and more. Let’s just say this tour (with also a little help from Rick Steve’s) turned me into a history nerd. It was all extremely fascinating to me. To be able to see the stuff I learned about in history books in real life kind of blew my mind. After that we went to the German History Museum. That was also incredibly interesting. It was this HUGE museum (with over 8,000 artifacts) covering Germany’s history from 1 BC to present day. It was great because I got to learn about Germany before the 20th century, which I admit, I barely knew anything about. I spent a while in there, before returning to the hostel where we had dinner (got beer and a burger- couldn’t resist) and passed out once again.
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| Jewish Holocaust Memorial |
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As you walk through the memorial-
you dont expect the blocks to get this tall |
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Hotel Adlon- it's a pretty famous and ridiculously nice hotel
(also where Michael Jackson dangled his baby over the balcony)
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| Part of the Berlin Wall still remaining |
Out of all aspects of the tour, I was actually most interested in the Berlin wall and how it came about. So the next day, I parted with my friends and went on another tour called “Red Berlin,” which dove into the communist/GDR/post WWII side of Berlin. There were only four other people on the tour, so I made friends with them and the tour guide- Dave. It was actually really cool. I learned how the Cold War fought its battles in the shadows of Berlin. We explored Berlin’s former Soviet Sector in East Berlin. We saw the Berlin Wall memorial (there were some really powerful stories) and the Death Strip, Stalinallee, the Ghost Stations, the East Side Gallery (the longest remaining segment of the Berlin Wall- see pics) and the former Stasi Interrogation Center. Dave knew a lot, which was good, because I had a lot of questions. I guess what was so shocking to me was how relatively recent this all was. The Berlin wall only came down in 1989! I knew this fact, but I didn’t know the extent to which how inhumane it actually was. If you have any questions about these places, let me know, I just didn’t want to bore my readers anymore than I might doing haha
J
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East side gallery
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Some pictures from it- i have a ton haha
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At the Berlin Wall Memorial (those people at the right were from Holland,
hearing them speak Dutch was crazy)
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| Pictures of people who lost their lives trying to escape |
The next day we left for Krackow, Poland. We were pretty nervous for this because none of us spoke ANY polish at all- but it turns out a ton of people also spoke English, so it was ok. The money conversion rate was awesome- one US dollar was worth around 3 Polish zloty- alright (nice break after the euro)!!! So we got some of that out of the ATM and headed for the bus. While we were waiting, this guy came up to us and said he would take us to the center (where we were trying to go) for 5 zloty for all of us in his van. This was extremely tempting- considering this was basically nothing, and we wouldn’t have to wait for the bus. But the creepiness of it overcame the temptation so we passed. Then the bus came, and we couldn’t get on because we needed exact change to buy a ticket… so annoying. But with the help of a newfound friend Tomak (sp?), we were able to get exact change and take the bus. Turns out Tomak also worked at the info desk at the airport, so he gave us all these tips and told us where we needed to go. He walked us to a certain point once we got to the center, and wished us luck. If we had any energy left in us, we would have tried to find our hostel from the center, but we just took a taxi (trying to hide if we saw Tomak). It was like, 2 seconds away haha. But that’s ok- we were happy to be there. The hostel was pretty small, and the bunk beds were three tiers! Guess who stayed on top? Yours truly. Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to.
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Flight from Berlin to Krackow (look at those clouds!!)
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Polish Zloty
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| The bunkbeds!! |
That night we got kebabs (aw yea kebabs), and just hung out at the hostel. We got to talking to the receptionist- Cuba and another guy (im actually friends with both of them on facebook now haha). They were really cool and funny. We were planning on visiting Auschwitz the next day, and Cuba offered to drive us, which we took him up on. So the next day we got up early for free breakfast, and loaded in Cuba’s modest car. He bought us doughnuts (though I couldn’t have them)- which was really sweet. We listened to his crazy stories the whole way there-very entertaining.
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| Cuba driving us |
But the mood switched once we arrived at Auschwitz (a network of concentration and death camps operated by Nazi Germany from WWII). I had read so much about this place, but nothing at all could prepare me for it. We took a tour of Auschwitz I (basecamp) and Auschwitz II- Birkenau. It was incredibly powerful and intense.
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Entrance of Auschwitz I. The gate says "Arbeit Macht Frei"
which means "Work makes one free" |
Later that night we went to a Pub, and got some traditional Polish food- I had potato pancakes (it was Friday)! After, we explored Krackow at night. The place was bumpin. We went into one club, danced a bit, and then just explored Krakow after that. It was absolutely beautiful. I fell in love with it.
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| At the Pub!! |
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| Krackow at night :) |
The next day we got up and pretty much explored the city. We walked around and saw all the beautiful churches and castle-like structures. We also went to the museum at Schlinder’s factory. If you haven’t seen the movie that was made about him (like me, unfortunately…), Schlinder saved around 1100 Polish-Jewish refuges by employing them in his factories. The museum (which was amazing) also went into detail about wartime experiences in Krackow under the 5-year Nazi occupation. It was incredible (sorry I feel like I use that word a lot), and I learned a ton. Later that night we went to a traditional polish restaurant (so cute!), and got Perogies (shout-out to my polish fam)! They were really good- a great dinner to end a short but sweet visit to Poland.
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| The Center of Krackow- i loved it! |
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| Schindler's desk!! |
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| Street entertainer- I could not figure out how she was doing that! |
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Krackow in the evening :)
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| Me in front a cool wall at the Polish restaurant |
I think I would really like to go back to Krackow. I loved the people, the food, and sites and the general atmosphere. It was also cool to see the country where my family’s polish traditions come from. I could almost consider living there one day (got to learn Polish first…)
The next day we took an early flight back to Rome, where we took a train back to our beloved Perugia. Overall, an excellent spring break. I learned and experienced an incredible (there it is again) amount.
So now im back at school! On Monday I took a free Zumba class taught by a fellow Umbra student. I don’t know why I haven’t done Zumba before, because it was so much fun. Yesterday, I went to a free Apertivo at a bar with my school- free sandwiches and wine, and im always down! My friends and I decided to stick around because there was going to be an “experimental” jazz band later in the evening. They were NOT kidding when they said experimental. All at once, the drummer, saxophone, and guitar player started playing at once. In no order, or any rhythm AT ALL. It was the loudest, most interesting noise I have ever heard. I also couldn’t stop laughing, I was literally crying (don’t worry, they didn’t see), just because I couldn’t understand if they were serious. OK, you had to be there. We left pretty quickly after that. Heads up- never go to an experimental jazz concert if you can help it.
--New update, my friend Alice who i met at the Tandem events invited me over for dinner yesterday and her roommate cooked for us. He made us curry chicken with rice, and meatballs with a yogurt sauce. It was amazzzzzzzzing!!!!!
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| So good. |
Alright well, I think that’s all the updates I have for now. Thanks for all the readers who read ALL of this; I didn’t realize how long it would be…
Auf Wiedersehen (German), Do zobaczenia wkrotce (Polish), and Arrivederci (I hope you know) J
Until next time,
Emilia
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