Europe, You Sneaky Bastard

So on the plane ride from Geneva to Athens I was planning out this blog to include all the ways in which I triumphed over Europe including scores like total number of countries (9), total number of hours spent on a train (about 51.5), total number of falafels eaten (7), you know things like that. And then after 2 weeks of completely smooth, nearly flawless travel, that sneaky bastard Europe ups and decides to hold on to my bag for a little while longer.

This bag was my life for two weeks, my heart, my soul, containing everything I could hold dear in the world on the road. Maybe it had just had so much fun traveling it wanted to continue on for a few more days. After a lot of stress, a lot of screaming at useless Greek people, and a lot of praying, the bag came home. I hung out with dad, stuffed my face with Greek food and I'm now settling into my new study abroad in Thessaloniki.

Overall on my trip I can say that I learned a few things. People are generally the same everywhere -- a smattering of assholes, sweethearts, smartasses, and whatever else there is. Ninety percent of all language and communication is completely superfluous (yeah kinda kills me to say as a person who is kinda basing their future career out of language and communication). Hearing two teenage girls gossip in any language - you know what is going on; hearing two old men bitch about their wives in any language - you know what is going on. But it's really only important for the basics and even then hand signals and such work out quite well.

Well I'm getting called off to my billionth orientation event, I guess my European observations will have to end there for now. Overall it was a perfect, amazing trip and I couldn't be happier that I did it. I'll be setting up a new blog soon to fulfill my journal requirement for Northeastern Study Abroad so whoever has been keeping an eye on me can continue to do so!

Call Me Anchovy

Before I went backpacking my dear Claire told me that I HAD to stop in Interlaken, I HAD to stay at Balmer's and I HAD to go canyoning. That girl has never led me astray before so I decided to make this highly recommended city my last stop and as my last night here comes to an end, I can say that Claire has maintained her spotless record.

After the painful but pretty 10-hour train ride from Brussels to Interlaken I walked the kilometer or so to my hostel, checked in and signed up for a canyoning trip the next day. I showered and headed down to the hostel bar for happy hour and was overwhelmed by the American accents. I don't think I've seen this many Americans in one place since I left so I grabbed a beer and found an empty seat at a table. The first group of guys I met were reasonably nice Frat guys studying abroad in Florence from some school in North Carolina. We chatted for a bit and then a spry little man ran around with a large cowbell announcing happy hour at the bar downstairs where they would be showing a Rugby World Cup qualifying match. We all headed down, I made some new friends -- non frat boys from Ohio, and started my first night of drinking in a month and a half. About 2 hours and three beers later I was extremely tipsy, the game was just about over and the aforementioned frat boys were snorting chewing tobacco. YEAH. Any trace of homesickness I had was wiped out on the spot. The night was quite a treat all around though; I needed a good, rowdy night of drinking after my very sober very fast-paced romp around Europe.

I happily didn't set an alarm as I drifted into a sound beer-induced sleep and woke up the next day around nine. I had my crappy, free hostel breakfast and set off to rent a mountain bike for the morning. The girl at the front desk pointed out a pretty ride that took me about two hours up the mountain to a lovely little town positioned under some giant waterfalls. I'm estimating it was a 15 or 16 mile ride but I really have no clue. In the past two years my bicycling experience (barring the gym) includes a day of mountain biking in New Zealand a year ago and a few hours on rented bikes in Santa Barbara earlier this summer with my beloved Slajda. Why I decided that I was capable and ready to do a 15 mile uphill ride based on this experience, I have no idea.

After many breaks and several curses at myself, I made it to the town realized that the aching muscles and bruised and painful ass were both beyond worth it. I wandered around there for a bit on my bike and then made the blissful but bumpy downhill ride back to Interlaken.

I got some lunch and a newspaper to kill the time until my canyoning group met at 4:30. When it was time we all loaded on to the bus and headed towards the canyons. I knew that this activity would involve some sliding down waterfalls and some jumping into pools of water but I wasn't quite prepared for how intense, cold and insanely fun it was going to be. We got into our wet suits, snazzy life jackets and blazing yellow helmets and pressed on. Each of the helmets had a nickname written on the front to save the guides from having to remember 15 new names every few hours. I was anchovy. There was a group of students with us and a sweet guy in the group presented his good female friend with a bright yellow helmet with "MUFF" painted loudly across the front.

It wasn't until we all got into the van and headed on our way that the poor girl couldn't figure out why everyone was laughing about the helmet and sweetly inquired as to what a Muff was. Before I set out on the trip I really hadn't expected the sentence "it's a vagina!" to come out of my mouth. Life is full of surprises.

We got into the canyon and it was beautiful. It was just narrow waterfalls that we got to slide our way down and a little river that we hiked through. The scariest jumps of the trip were one from a teetering log about 20 feet above a tiny pool of water with rocky cliffs on either side and a 25-foot jump into a slightly bigger pool. However, the rock we jumped from sloped out wider towards the bottom so we had to jump at least 5 or 6 feet out to keep from hitting it on the way down. Super fun!

I finished the activity unscathed and got back to the staging location for my free beer. I'm back at the hostel now and as I was typing this blog my peppy little cowbell man just ran by to announce happy hour and you can't say no to a cowbell. I'm off to toast my trip on it's last night and then wake up at 4:45 a.m. to make the early train to Geneva for my flight back to Greece.

Waffles and Beer and Chocolate, Oh Joy!

Belgium and I did not get off to a good start but the country has grown on me quickly. I got off the train, extremely confused, because there are apparently three different major train stations in Brussels -- something my handy Eurail schedule book neglects to mention. The cheapest map at the train station was 8 Euro so I decided to say screw it and find my own way. I finally figured out where I was and what the hell was going on and made my way towards the decrepit metro to find my hostel.

In retrospect, that was probably a bad choice given the crappy, shady, rundown condition of the neighborhood surrounding the metro stop, which was supposedly a kilometer from my hostel. I finally found a shopkeeper who spoke enough English to point me in the right direction and hightailed it there. I got into my hostel, dropped my bags and made a quick stop at the cheap internet station by the front desk. Now along my trip I have encountered some oddities as far as computers and keyboard layouts are concerned. Typically the z and the y are switched or the delete key is in a strange spot but Belgian keyboards, for lack of a more appropriate word, are completely fucked. You have to press shift to get numbers or a period, the entire left hand section of letters is rearranged and all of the function keys are in different places in an as of yet indistinguishable foreign language.

Needless to say this blog is taking an excruciatingly long time to type.

After giving up on the computers for the night I went back to my room and met my roommates for the evening, two second cousins from Texas. They were the first Americans I had really seen or spent any time with on the trip and the three of us decided to venture out to find some dinner. They had been traveling around Europe for 6 weeks so we got to trade war stories on awful hostels and language barriers, which was surprisingly refreshing. I guess I didn't realize I was starting to ache for home a bit and they were the perfect companions for the night.
We got in early to avoid walking through our questionable neighborhood too late to find that our hostel had been overrun by a Dutch high school field trip. For the record, 16-year-olds are apparently complete assholes in any culture.

This morning I set out to explore Brussels until I was satisfied and then take a train to Ghent to get some variety for the country. I got a bit lost walking from my hostel to the center of town so a sweet Nigerian named Bright walked with me for a bit to show me the way. He'd been living in Belgium for a few years and hadn't seen his family since, which definitely put my twinges of homesickness into some serious perspective.

Once I got into the meat of the city I realized just how gorgeous the place was and Belgium and I began the healing process in our relationship. Munich and Amsterdam were both fun, interesting and pretty but neither of them really grabbed me like this place did. I wandered around for about 3 hours investigating all the must-sees, including the wildly popular fountain of the little boy peeing, which I must say, I still don't get. After my feet and my stomach started screaming louder than my curiosity, I made my way to the train station for Ghent to check out the fried potatoes there I had heard so much about. I stuffed my face with the delicious fries and wandered around for another three hours or so. It was a great little university town filled with second-hand stores and open squares lined with lounging students. It had a very similar feel to Boston and I was happily at home poking around the narrow streets to see the famous old buildings that filled the place. I eventually hopped on a train back to Brussels. By the way, I freaking love my Eurail pass.

The entire day I had been making mental notes of the best looking waffles during my wanderings and decided on the tiny store next to, of course, that stupid little peeing statue. I ordered up my waffle covered in strawberries, bananas and hot fudge. The clouds parted, the light shone through, angels sang and all was truly right in the world for the 45 seconds or so that it took me to devour that thing. Belgium and I had officially healed all wounds so I decided it was a good time to call it a day. I'm back at the hostel now getting some laundry done for the first time this trip (it's just too easy to let that whole hygiene thing go when you are traveling alone) and getting to bed early before heading off to my final stop first thing in the morning.

I realized my train will be going through Luxembourg which will bring my grand total to 9 countries in 15 days as soon as I land in Interlaken, Switzerland tomorrow afternoon!

Decisions, Decisions

There aren't too many cities in the world where you can wake up and choose between the following options for your day: going to famous museums, checking out historic architecture, eating pot brownies and getting yourself a hooker. Ah, Amsterdam. I've never been as happy to get into a new city as I was yesterday morning - due entirely to the person who was seated next to me on the overnight train from Munich. I'd have to say she was the stinkiest woman in the history of stink or women.

I got in around 9, dropped my bag at the hostel and immediately set out for the Van Gogh Museum, which I have been so excited for this whole trip. As a warning, I am going to go very cheesy and very nerdy for the rest of this blog because I love this stuff. It was unsettling to look at some of the paintings that create this very strange world that somehow seems so real you could drown in it. All the little fact sheets at the museum said Van Gogh was more interested in painting things that evoked and portrayed emotion instead of the actual object, which he felt was more real than reality anyway. I think I ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours there just wandering around and staring.

After I was finally able to tear myself away I set off to wander the streets of Amsterdam and check out the Red Light District to see what the fuss was all about. My roommate from the hostel in Innsbruck, Claudia, had lived in Holland for about 7 years and told me that while I was in Amsterdam, the Sex Museum was worth a look if for nothing but entertainment. I found my way to the Red Light District after a couple hours of wandering that took me through the most entertaining flea market I have ever seen. There you could choose between the tables of porn, bicycle equipment, shoes, marijuana accessories, housewares and sex toys. The naughtier area of the city looked exactly like the rest of it - aside from the half naked women alluringly hanging out in the windows of all the stores. But I saw old couples walking through, families with small children - it's just another part of the city here.

The Sex Museum, as Claudia said, was entertaining but that's about it. The first floor was statues and figurines from ancient cultures showing people going at it but the rest of the "museum" was pretty much just porn. I'd say it was worth the five Euro to get in for the chuckle at least.

Next I wandered a bit more in hopes of finding food and eventually ending up at the Anne Frank House. The most striking thing about Amsterdam isn't the wafting smell of weed coming out of every street corner or the prostitutes' union, it's the bicycle culture. On most streets there is a tiny lane for cars, but two or three bicycle lanes. Everyone has one and people are as comfortable riding as they are walking. Almost all the bikes have some kind of box hanging off them that can be filled with groceries, belongings, dogs or children. It's not uncommon to see someone riding down the street while enjoying their morning coffee and breakfast, while talking on the phone and checking their watch like it's nothing.

After almost getting hit by the bicycles about 15 times, I ended up at the Anne Frank House. Per the wishes of Otto Frank, the house remained unfurnished even though the museum curators had originally wanted it to be set up as it was while the family was in hiding. It was intense to say the least and there weren't too many people there who weren't tearing up a bit from room to room. There was a tv in every empty room that told a bit about it and the people who were there. Anne's bedroom still had the cut-outs from magazines pasted to the walls like you'd see in any young teenage girl's room today. After that I was drained so I headed back in the direction of my hostel to nap for a bit.

This hostel had a substantially younger crowd than most places I've been so I didn't have the chance to make any new friends before I headed back into town for dinner. I went to a coffee shop just to check it out, actually ordered coffee, and read the newspaper for a bit before I found some Chinese take-out.

There was a bar at the hostel so I ended up there for happy hour, which is apparently from 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. in Holland and finally found some solo-travelers above the age of 16. There was Colin the Canadian engineer and bicycle enthusiast who was on vacation for two weeks and Filippe the Estonian from Finland who was in town for a Mac conference. We drank and chatted for a few hours and I got my typical surprised reaction from foreigners that yes, I am American and no, I am not completely clueless. Every once in awhile the whole traveling by myself thing gets to me when I get a little bored and a little hungry for familiarity but I'm still so glad I decided to do it because it has given me the opportunity to meet so many more people from so many random places that I would have never even thought of than if I had been in a group. After my satisfying night with new friends and exhausting day, I passed out, in a bed, not being spooned by a putrid smelling train mate.

This morning I woke up early to get to the Rijksmuseum when it opened. It was the first museum I've been to in Europe that was just, meh. It was much smaller than I thought and definitely not worth the 10 Euro for admission especially when the bastards didn't even offer a student discount. So now I am just killing time until I can get on my train destined for the land of waffles and chocolate. Dear lord, I'm excited for Belgium.

Eleni the German

Today was not the day to be a tourist in Munich. The sky spent the day threatening to open up at any second, most of the architecture was covered by scaffolding for repairs and all the museums were closed. Given that, I made the command decision to let the 3/8 of me that is German shine through and be a local for the day, rather successfully I might add.

I had gotten a good head start last night when I went to a local beer hall for dinner. And when I say hall, I mean hall. It was just a gaping, cave-like room with a bunch of tables and grumbling overweight waitresses puttering around in German bar-maid outfits. I took an empty seat at the table near the kitchen and attempted to order something off of the menu, which was entirely in German. Noticing my blank expression, the scowling waitress threw an English language menu at me and I ordered up a half liter of some kind of beer and the "homemade ravioli over potato and cucumber salad." I guess you could say whatever she brought me was reasonably close to that... there were fried ravioli-esque things on the plate with some kind of meat in them but what ever else was there just looked like a steaming shredded pile of soupy onions - a taste I'm quite sure I will be burping up for the next four months.

Two German guys, Ronald and Thomas, pulled up seats by me about the same time that two other guys in liederhosen carrying tubas entered the bar to cause a ruckus. I chatted with my new friends, did the touristy thing and took some pictures and went back to the hostel to pass out.

I woke up this morning and paid the 3.90 Eurofor breakfast, taking the all-you-can-eat sign to heart and made a sandwich and swiped a banana for lunch. At that point in the day the sun was still teasing at a possible appearance so I just started wandering in the general direction of the giant English Garden some former hostel-roommate German girls had suggested. It was huge and green and gorgeous but it was starting to get cold so I hatched my "I want to be from Munich plan". I picked up a copy of the international Herald-Tribune and headed to a cafe to buy a coffee and pastry with the money I had already saved on lunch. I saw a cafe with hedgehog-shaped pastries and my decision got made for me. About two stories into the paper an old woman sat down at my tiny table and just started chatting. I swear I have a multi-lingual sign above my head that says HEY CRAZY PEOPLE, I WANT TO TALK TO YOU. She ended up being awesome. She had lived in Washington D.C. for a few years, saw that I was reading an English paper and jumped at the chance to brush up on her language skills.

Her husband died quite a few years back so I was treated to an old German woman with a thick accent talking about all of her recent dates with the young sixty-year-old foxes she had been picking up recently. Of course she imparted the typical old person to young person live every day to the fullest speech, which I was happy to listen to because she was just so darn cute. She left me to my paper when she realized she was late for her date with her most recent bachelor. I finished off my coffee, hedgehog and the crossword and I was off for some more wandering. The cold weather and sore muscles from my hike yesterday ended that right quick and I set out to find a movie theater.I found one playing the Bourne Ultimatum in English, grabbed a beer at the concession stand (oh how I love my new-found nationality) and settled in for a couple hours of Matt Damon kicking ass. I was a bit sad that none of the exotic European locations he was kicking ass in had been on my trip but I was beyond content either way. The sky finally let loose as I was on my way out of the theater so I ran back to my hostel to sit out the storm. I have about two hours until my overnight train to Amsterdam leaves but luckily this is the first hostel I have stayed at that is fully equipped with a bar and lounge. I'm pretty excited to check out my first overnight train and am very thankful for my God-given ability to fall asleep and stay that way in the most random places.

For the worriers out there, I did pick up a luggage lock today so that I can secure my bags to the luggage rack before I go to sleep so I can wake up with all my belongings intact.

Bacon Dumpling Soup

After my last glorious night in Venice I woke up before dawn to catch the early train into Innsbruck, Austria. I picked it mostly because it was directly between Italy and Germany but aside from Venice it was by far my favorite stop I've made yet. It's a tiny little town wedged into the alps. Any street that you can look down for long enough ends in a giant snow-capped mountain and there is a stream running through the middle of town fed by the run-off. The train-ride alone was worth the trip. Usually I alternate between looking out the window and reading a book but as the train wound through the bottom of a valley with bright green mountains on either side I was glued.

I got into town and found my way to my cozy little hostel that felt more like a wood cabin b&b than the overcrowded barns I've gotten used to. I walked around town for a bit and then came back for a nap. I woke up to meet my roommate for the evening, a tall, thin, pretty Portuguese girl named Claudia who had a mountain of curly dark brown hair... so unlike my roommate from home who is a tall, thin, pretty Portuguese girl named Claudia who has a mountain of curly dark brown hair. My European Claudia and I set out for a night walk around town and a cup of coffee and just chatted for a few hours about everything there is to chat about. It made me a bit homesick for Boston and Claudia: the original, but it was a perfectly pleasant evening. I had read in my faithful lonely planet guide that if you stay at a hostel and get a Club Innsbruck card you can go on a free guided hike that leaves every morning at nine and I decided that was the perfect way to spend my second and last day in Austria.

When I arrived at the meeting spot I got to meet my little fantastically motley crew of hikers which was comprised of Kaori, the Japanese dance teacher; Mary Ann, the Wisconsinite high school English teacher; Gary, the New Zealand advertising guy; Gerhardt, the German electrician; and Martin, our faithful Austrian Sherpa. We drove around for a bit since the area had been pretty heavily dumped on by snow until we found a trail in good condition. On our way up the mountain I made friends with a happy little beagle mutt, an Alpine pony and a Scottish highlander cow-thing. Heavy fog set in for most of the hike but as we got to the top above the tree line we could see the tops of all the other mountains peaking out through the clouds. There was a tiny rest area/restaurant at the top of the mountain where we stopped in for lunch and carbs in the form of giant beers.

Martin pointed out some of the Austrian specialties on the menu and I went for the bacon dumpling soup which I can easily say was the best decision I've made in my life thus far. After food the other two women and I split and apple strudel and waddled our way back down the mountain. After exchanging information with everyone and getting the bus driver to take the same picture with way too many cameras we made our way back into town. I hopped on my train to Munich and found my hostel which brings me up to now. The boys at the front desk pointed out a beer hall that they said I simply had to try and hey, I can't argue with that!

Verona and Venice

I am wholly and truly content (and exhausted) all the way down to my toes, which, incidentally, are throbbing from the 10 or so hours I just spent exploring Venice and some of the nearby islands. I spent yesterday morning and afternoon wandering around the streets of Verona before hopping on my train to see the city that has streets paved with water.

Verona is that storybook kingdom in every fairy tale ever told. There are winding streets, giant castles, hidden gardens, an ancient amphitheater and a huge moat surrounding the entire city. Really, somebody should have thought to write some hugely inspiring love story and set it there.... oh wait. After searching the narrow streets for far too long to find an internet cafe to post the last blog, I set off first for the most touristy spots and then went exploring on my own. While Juliet is a fictional character, there was a Capulet family that lived in Verona and their home did happen to have a balcony. There is a statue of Juliet standing under it and it is apparently good luck to rub her right breast. So far more entertaining than the beautiful tiny garden and old stone balcony is watching the hoards of tourists lining up to take pictures of everyone from Great-Grandma Patel to little cousin Jose (like the multiculturalism there?) get to second base with a big hunk of metal. But of course I went in for a squeeze too.

The corridor into the garden is lined with thousands of scraps of paper and scribbled names of couples hoping to get a little extra luck from the romantic city. I may or may not have been a giant cheeseball and added two names to the list but really come to think of it... maybe trying to get lovers luck out of the two fictional characters who ended up offing themselves over the whole ordeal wasn't the best idea ever.

Next was the wandering where I found the prettiest garden I have ever seen, making it well worth the five EuroI had to shell out to get in. The Giardino Giusti is nestled into the winding streets behind the large Roman theater. Apparently created a couple hundred years ago, it has stayed in the family. It was overcast the day I was there so the color in most of the city was greyed out. But in the garden where there were very few flowers, mostly hedges and trees, everything in maintained a bright vibrant green glow. The highlight of the garden was the hedge-maze-thingie, the kind I have been dying to play in since I was about three. After getting my fill I explored a bit more and set off for Venice.

This city is the kind of beautiful that grabs you by the throat and hits you in the gut (in the case of Venice, it packs a pretty punch to the wallet too). After paying my 20 euros for my 36-hour bus pass, yeah thats about 28 dollars, I found my little bus-boat-vaporetto to my hostel. My lonely planet guide called it charmless and they were being nice. It's in an old grainery on the long skinny island just under the main chunk of Venice. There are about 18 beds in a room and there is no age limit so my bunk buddy is an older, typically drunk, although friendly, German woman here on vacation. Last night I explored this island a bit and ate my dinner sitting on the sidewalk on the water outside the hostel watching the sunset and saw my first bit of Venice heaven.

After a seriously uncomfortable sleep I woke up with the express goal of the day to get myself hopelessly lost as many times as possible and it was a screaming success. I think I looked at the map a total of 4 times. There are some touristy I guess must-sees and I think I hit most of them by accident but the power of the city comes from just walking through the back streets. I would be walking through a jam-packed square one second, take a left and be completely by myself in a tiny alley way that led to 18 more just like it. I passed on the 80-Euro Gondola ride but I'm pretty ok with that. I would walk for as long as I could before getting tired and then plop myself down where ever I happened to be and people-watch until I got itchy to move again.

After about 7 hours of that I caught a boat over to Murano island to watch some of the glass-blowing demonstrations and browse the shops. At the last shop I met a half Italian, half Turkish guy named Ari and let me tell you, Jeremy Piven had nothing on this guy. He was schmoozer to all extremes but friendly and gave me some nice little facts on the city. One of my favorites being the aforementioned price of the buses, which are 6 Euro a ride for tourists and apparently one Euro a ride for Venetians. YEAH. But oh well, it was all worth it.

I feel like I should have some more anecdotes from this place but I don't. It was just a perfect little day where I got to do absolutely nothing but let this place wash over me. And in honor of my perfect day I am going to splurge and actually spend more than 5 Euro on a meal for once. I leave for Austria tomorrow morning and I'm pretty sure it is actually considered a crime to leave this country without having a serious pasta dinner at least once.