First of all, Catherine's birthday weekend was a success and now i can actually talk about it. Friday was Italian day (already talked about it) i flew home, showered, cut up vegetables and bread and parmesan and flew back to campus for a mandatory meeting about meeting Gordon Brown (TOMORROW), and then flew back to my apartment; I even chased a florentine bus down and made him stop for me. no time to waste.
I got into the kitchen and realized i'd forgotten to tell my actual friends that I needed the kitchen that night. Priya, kelsey, and new-friend Ben were chillin, eating pasta, and i was like I need the kitchen NOW!!!!! fortunately, they were awesome. they helped me clean up and get everything ready and pretty much helped set the whole thing up. i couldnt have done it without them. i made delicious crostini (see blog below) and then Nicole, Vijay, and Nicole's friend Sunita got there. They'd flown in that day to surprise catherine. Then i told catherine to come over (I'd told her we were going to cook that night, and she kept asking if there was anything she should bring. "just bring some rice. bring some rice." so Catherine showed up at my apartment with a bag of rice, and was slightly confused at first because we had all the lights off and she could only see priya but then she saw me and then she saw nicole and vijay and were very surprised. :) we caught the whole thing on film. Then we enjoyed delicious crostini and chianti classico before heading out to Coquinarius, the restaurant I'd made reservations at. Catherine and i had been wanting to try it all semester but actually couldn't find it, haha. Anyway, i called them and stopped by two locations in order to find this restaurant, but i found it and made reservations. we had a great time and i ate a yummy salad. Then we all got grom and came back to my apartment and just hung out for a bit
saturday catherine had a field trip with a class, but i did some hw and went and picked up the cake from Sugar and Spice, an American bakery in florence. I got her a pumpkin cake, which was kind like carrot cake with buttercream frosting. :) i also picked up a brownie, because brownies don't exist in florence. then catherine got back and we all headed across the arno to Lugarno Hotel's restaurant Borgo San Jacopo, where I'd made reservations. I had no idea how good a decision this was going to be. It was super nice with white paneled walls and it was two stories and lit by candles. so beautiful. We got a table next to the window and they took our jackets and brought stools for our purses! then they immediately brought us some wine to try... which i was surprised was free... and then they brought a tuna dish for everyone to try which was free and the bread was free and was salted so it was actually delicious. Let alone the amazing service and food. I got potato dumplings in a lobster sauce with grilled vegetables and wanted to cry. I had a little adventure with the cake: Domenico had told me that italians were cool with you bringing cakes to restaurants and theyd serve it to you afterwards, but he didnt tell me you needed the receipt! anyway, i thought the whole thing was over, until i found the receipt! they served the cake with a candle for her to blow out (it said Happy 21st Birthday Caterina) and then they cut the cake into slices and decorated the plates with a gorgeous chocolate decorative sauce. Borgo San Jacopo went out of its way to make sure we had a great time. It felt like an American fancy restaurant, just because they treated us so respectably and were willing to do anything for us. not to mention all the free food! anyway, we had a great time, and i hope catherine had a good birthday, despite not having any family or anything.
hmmm i was gonna try to talk about vienna... but im out of time... ill come back and edit this tonight
Train Florence to Vienna: Overnight. Jamie and co. The Fighting Couple. "Man, I can't move my four bags." The Singing Woman. Sliding Chairs. Getting checked like five times.
Stephansdom
Jesuitenkirche
Haus der Musik
Albertina
Schatzkammer (in 30 minutes)
Siebensternbrau
Check in by 9 pm
Runnnn
The Social Network
Vienna Day 2
Schonbrunn "Are we good with the castle?"
Catherine's building(majolikahaus)/rings/starbucks!
MAK
Kleine's Cafe
Leopold Museum
Train to Munich, View of Salzburg, got in at 10:30, Euro Youth Hostel ("You guys want something from Subway?")
i think if you want an overarching view of fall break, you should really read catherine's blog haha. it does a really good job of a step by step what we did. i'm just going to talk.
starting fall break was relatively interesting because i was pretty much dead from studying for econ, like literally dead. and we were worried about getting out because there was supposed to be a train strike the night we were leaving, but then they cancelled it (italians are so lazy they're too lazy to do their own strike). so we got out just fine. it was rpetty exciting because it was our first all-night train. i feel like everyone should have an adventure like that at least once in their life. anyway, we got on the train and were in the same carriage (the only train our tickets were next to each other, thanks eurail pass). Then i bumped into Jamie form my Fascism and we were both like "whatre you doing here?" "Going to Vienna!" it was awesome because they were in our same carriage (him, christine, and The Fighting Couple), but there was a guy who was in their seat, so we got in an argument with him and he said all this junk about having too many bags to carry and that he'd been traveling for so long, and i stepped in "Sir, we're just a bunch of kids traveling together. we want to stay together. you are in the wrong seat!" eventually we got him to move and then there was only one other stranger in our carriage, but she got off at Venice. the funny part was that she acted like she was sleeping but then started singing. i have never tried to keep in laughter so hard in my life (i failed) we also got a video of her singing. it was so awkward. then jamie realized that the seats slide out into like half beds so that was hilarious playing on the sliding chairs. then we passed out. Unfortunately we got ticket checked at least four times that night (one time was at 5:30 i remember) which was pretty awful. when i woke up i felt terrible, but it was incredible waking up in a completely different world. Austria is beautiful and full of cottages that look like hanzel and gretel. It was incredible to wake up to that.
We had to not waste our day in vienna so after getting checked in at the hostel, we headed immediately back out. We stopped in at Europa, a place my book recommended for breakfast. and I got scrambled eggs and wanted to cry. they were so good. and they were cooked well, not soggy at all, and it was just amazing to have eggs. haha. we saw two main churches (stephansdom and jesuitkirche) and just walked around for a bit, admiring vienna. Vienna is gorgeous, especially the main downtown area. I think we learned a lot on this trip about how most of the original parts of each city have been preserved (except Berlin really and Bern because the whole city has remained relatively the same for 500 years), and then surrounding the city center is all modern new buildings, etc. but the centers are always so historical and beautiful. I would definitely go back to Vienna again, and could probably see myself living there too.
I think we mostly got confused and kept saying "german things." everything felt so german, but we were in austria. i would love to talk to an austrian about that. and maybe with more time we couldve seen the differences between german culture and austrian culture. but to us everything just seemed so austrian
A completely unique museum we did was the Haus Der Musik (see....german!). It covered the process of hearing, and sound waves etc, but then it also covered famous composers. it was kinda weird, but i really loved it, jsut because id never done a museum like that before. and learning about the composers was really cool too. i listened to this CD of Haydn's music remix (Re: Haydn), and it was sooooo coool, all his stuff all techno, but the cd was like 22 euro... uh no
then we did the albertina which had some great artwork, mostly by picasso (we saw so much picasso that week it was insane.... i dont like his art still haha). but also had some new guy (cant recall his name right now) which we both really like. he did just forest scenes with really interesting colors (like magenta!) and they were really cool to look at.
that evening was an adventure. i have no idea how we did it. we were on the way to a restaurant we wanted to try and saw a movie theater that was playing the Social Network at 8;30 in english. We both wanted to see it (id heard it was a great movie, and it did not disappoint). So we practically ran to the restaurant, siebenstrau, which was delicious. It's known because it brews it's own beer and has great german food. We got beers with walnut flavors, etc, which were superb and i got chicken schnitzel with french fries, and also wanted to cry. (you'll hear this a lot. i got food that week that i hadn't eaten since summer vacation). just having french fries was incredible. plus it was my first huge meal since before midterms (too much studying and paperwriting meh), so it was glorious. i ate everything haha.
we ran back to the hostel because you had to put your bags in your room by nine (check in wasnt until the afternoon), and then raced back to the movie theater (getting lost pretty badly) but still with time to pee and get a diet coke... and yes i said, diet coke... its just italy that doesnt know how to do diet coke. or soda really. poor things.
social network was a good movie and i thought was really accurate of...college... but not in an overly colorful sort of way, more of...this is just how it is. really intelligent people doing...stupid things. haha. but i liekd the story and it was weird seeing an actor play my neighbor. but im so glad that night worked out. it was a lot of fun. We also think that people were sturggling to understand the movie (though there were german subtitles). the characters were speaking really fast and with slang (theyre college kids after all) but even catherine and i noticed.
.....more later... gotta go get in line for HP tickets!
bec
back!
I forgot to talk about the Fighting Couple! The Fighting Couple was on our over-night train to Vienna and was composed of one of Jamie's roommates and the girl's boyfriend who was visiting for Fall Break. Apparently while trying to figure out which train was the right train. Boy walked away from Girl without telling Girl. Girl couldn't see him anywhere and had to stay with all the bags. They fought the whole train ride. They both cried. Like sobbed. Probably Boy cried more than Girl. But somehow, even though Girl was originally mad, Boy was furious and Girl just kept apologizing over and over and over again. Boy cussed at Girl hardcore which made me shudder, but it was weird to see Boy cry so hard. Anyway, they stood in the hallway of the train (outside the carriages) and I could observe them and periodically would update Jamie, Catherine and Christine. I'm pretty sure I woke up at one point in the night and could hear them still yelling at each other. It was the most insane fighting I'd ever seen. And so sad, Boy had probably spent $2000 to come see Girl for Fall break, they should be happy!!! I would be. Then again, Boy was probably tired (he had flown all night to get here), which is why he got so mad at Girl when Girl got mad at him. bahaha. Anyway, Jamie told me that after they got to Vienna, they fought in the hotel for awhile while he and Christine went around Vienna. So sad. but extremely amusing at the time.
The second day in Vienna, we took a tram for the first time, which was pretty exciting. Trams are pretty much everywhere in Europe except Florence, because it would seriously mess with Florence's roads (most roads are as wide as sidewalks). We took the tram to see a castle just outside of Vienna. We didn't go in because it cost a bunch of money but it was fun to take pictures of. It was incredibly freezing so finally I said "Are we good with the castle?" and we headed back into town. That's when something amazing happened: we passed a Starbucks!! I immediately had to get one, and was so happy. STARBUCKS. Coffee in a cup that you can carry around with you!!!! And so started our Fall Break madness of getting Starbucks and muffins wherever we could because we knew we wouldn't be able to again once we got back to Italy. Italy: No one likes to stand at a bar and scarf down coffee. We like to hold it in our hands, feel its warmth, carry it around with us for awhile, let it make us happy for a period of time longer than 3 minutes before an Italian bumps you out of the way for his espresso.
We also saw a building Catherine really wanted to see and bargained with a guy in a market right there to get some rings: 2 for 6 euro!
Then we found MAK. We thought MAK was closed but then we found another door. MAK was free, which was crazy, because there was so much stuff in there. I have no idea what MAK stands for. I think Mom wouldve really liked MAK. It was an eclectic museum, full of all sorts of stuff from china to chairs to rugs to artwork to architecture. There was a futuristic architecture section that was really cool. Some rooms dedicated completely to chairs (we actually saw quite a few exhibits on chairs), a section on a journalist and his political cartoons (which were intense) and a giant squid that took up a whole room. What I really liked was that in each room they had sheets of paper you could pick up that described different objects in the room and what the room was about (in English!) and all for free. It was a very technologically advanced museum and ....slick. We liked it.
Then we did Kleine's Cafe which was actually a bar but had hardcore vegetables for the first time in awhile which was pretty nice and took turns sitting over the heater because each of us kept getting super hot. Then we did the Leopold museum which was pretty much just art (i'm so sorry, art is awesome, and I love going to art museums, but over time, for me to tell you what was there.... uh... my guess would probably be picasso)
and we headed back to Do Stepp Inn and wen tot the train station to go to Munich that night. It was a shorter train (five hours), but it definitely cut time out of Vienna that I think we both wouldve enjoyed.
The train to munich was empty which was nice, it was also a bloody nice train. This couple next to me woke me up at one point to tell me there was about to be a pretty view of Salzburg outside the window, which I thought was very nice of them to do. And it was very pretty, even though it was nighttime and we could only see lights and the outlines of things. But that was nice of them.
Woot. Vienna Done. haha. I'm meeting Gordon Brown tomorrow!!!!! Need to get to bed early!
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