Spring break '09: My 11-day European adventure

I’ve skied in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Colorado, Utah, Montana, California, British Columbia and the French and Swiss Alps. I’ve seen the Golden Gate Bridge, been to Fenway Park, (The Old) Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field in one season. I’ve lay on the beaches of Acapulco, Mexico and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and cruised the Caribbean islands. I’ve been to the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals and Sweet 16 in a short span of five years, all including the teams for which I diehardingly (made up word, but it fits) follow (I was 3-1; the Badgers failed me against Stephen Curry in Detroit).

Wow, I’ve done a lot of amazing things in my 21 1/6-year existence. But to be perfectly honest, these past 11 days, as a whole, have rivaled all the above-mentioned experiences.

Max, Henry, Doug, Tyler, Brady and I (the boys of Templova 7) were greeted by sunshine and palm trees in Barcelona two Fridays ago. That big, bright star of ours has become a novelty, as Max, Tyler and I seem to be haunted by the same rain cloud wherever we travel. The six of us took a bus to Brady’s high school friend’s apartment in Barceloneta, which is right on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea – sand between your toes was a nice change of pace from the wind and hail in Prague. The location was perfect; the only downside was that her place was the size of your average Dodge Caravan. Luckily, her two roommates were gone traveling, so Brady, Henry, Tyler and Doug shared the pullout coach and one empty bed; Max and I left our bags there and went to stay with Erica, a fellow Bostonian Badger from Sharon.

We, Americans call New York the City That Never Sleeps. We, Americans are wrong. New York is the City That Barely Sleeps. Barcelona is truly the City That Never Sleeps. It’s wild. You don’t go out to the raging clubs until around 2 a.m. and walk home as the sun is coming (or is already) up. But it’s not as if you then sleep ‘til 5 p.m. to make up for it; there’s too much going on during the day for head-to-pillow contact.

La Rambla is the main strip in downtown Barcelona. It’s crazy, to say the least. They sell roosters, pigeons, fish, turtles, you name it, on the street. I almost (OK, not really) bought a chameleon – whose eyes move independently of each other – for 70 euro on the street, just to say I bought a chameleon in Barcelona. Don’t think it would have gotten through customs, though, so I refrained. La Rambla is hoppin’ during the day (you’ll see the reason for italics later). So much commotion, people dressed as statues looking for money every 12 feet. They even had an American bar (the food sucked, especially compared to the seafood and paella the city had to offer) where we could watch some March Madness (quick shoutout to myself for making the money in our Framingham pool for probably the fourth time out of the last six years.)

Also located on La Rambla was the coolest food market I’ve ever seen. It had everything from fresh-squeezed kiwi juice, to full, hanging (dead) pigs, to live octopi being hosed down to stay fresh. I went twice and was mesmerized both times.

Max and I partook in an anti-capitalist movement at the top of the city square. Yeah, we were basically Communists for all of 25 minutes. These Spanish workers were banging drums, screaming into megaphones, chanting, burning fake euro in front of the Bank of Spain. Apparently they too aren’t happy with the current global financial situation.

Saturday night is when things got a bit crazy. A bunch of Madison folk went to this club called Elephant (as in “font,” not “phint”). Shawna and her friends were also in town and I wanted to meet up with them. So I took a cab (you take cabs everywhere in Barcelona; it’s just too big. Not friendly on the ole’ wallet) to the club they were at. By the time I got there – let’s say 4:30 a.m., they were leaving the club (I did meet up with them the next day for some Gaudi-architectural sightseeing). I was staying at my friend Julie’s (another Badger) apartment, so I called her and tried to tell the cab driver in Spanish (very little English in Barcelona) where to go. To make a medium-sized story short, two cab rides later (yeah, my Spanish is that good), I found myself walking down La Rambla toward Brady’s friend’s apartment because it was the only place I recognized. Only thing was, no one was answering their phones. This presented somewhat of a problem.

Anyone who knows anything about Barcelona knows that walking down La Rambla by one’s self at night (well, early morning) is basically walking into a gauntlet of "illegal" (at least by U.S. standards) activity. As I strolled the street, I was bombarded by beer sellers, drug dealers and prostitutes. That happens sometimes in Prague, too, when they smell the American on you, but not to this magnitude. All I wanted was a bed – by myself, mind you – but all the hotels were full (who would have thought at six in the morning?). Finally I found a hostel for 17 euro, slept on the bottom bunk, woke up at noon and re-found my friends. If only the excitement stopped there.

Monday, Max, Tyler and I hopped on a plane to Rome. Tyler met Kelly there so Max and I were on our own. We stayed in a nice bed and breakfast in town. We immediately went out for Italian food and let me tell you, the stigma is for real: the food in Italy is amazing. All week I had nothing but feasts, from spaghetti to pizza, lasagna to ravioli, in one word: awesome.

Anyway, we sat next to this nice, middle-aged Irish couple. Two hours later, we were exchanging emails, phone numbers and addresses, which I subsequently lost the next evening (story coming soon). We talked about politics, school, economics, history, you name it. Great people. Funny thing was, we had almost the exact same conversation with a similarly-aged Danish couple the next night at dinner. Both couples were excited about the Obama Era, for the record.

Although this semester has begun to change this, as mentioned in a previous post: historically, I have not been one enthralled by history (not involving some sort of ball), art or architecture. Rome, however, blew me away. Max and I saw the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps that first night. The Trevi Fountain is one of the coolest manmade structures I’ve seen. The Steps were nothing to write home about, so I phoned home (ET style) from the top instead (true story).

Tuesday we got up early to go to the Vatican. The Sistine Chapel left me in a daze and the tombs of all of the Popes were pretty cool, too. Next was the Coliseum. Not much to say about that; I think the pictures speak for themselves. I simply can’t fathom how the Ancient Romans were able to build that thing. It honestly makes no sense. You can see where the gladiators waited before their matches, as the sand floor obviously no longer exists. Wild.

Those were the two highlights of the day. We saw the Pantheon, the shrine of Emanuel II and the Forum. They were all amazing, but incomparable to those first two sights. Tyler and Kelly were headed back to Florence, but Max and I wanted to stay in Rome one more night with a bunch of kids from our program in Prague. That was a mistake.

It came up several times over the course of the week that I had had my black Calvin Klein wallet since 7^th grade. Now I’m convinced jinxing is for real. Ten of us went out together to explore the Roman night life. A couple bars later, my left pocket was wallet-less. I don’t know if I left it somewhere or it was stolen, but either way I had to cancel my debit card. Really put a damper on things in the middle of my trip. I contemplated going back to Prague that Friday. Good thing I didn’t.

After cancelling my card, Max and I took the train to Florence. He stayed with Tyler, Kelly and Co.; I stayed with Becky and her seven roommates. The Bus2Alps trip to the Amalfi Coast was full (we hadn't signed up yet), so I stayed with Becky (Elena came Thursday) for five nights. Living with multiple girls is interesting, but it was a nice change from Testosterone Templova.

I loved Florence. We went to the top of the Duomo, a huge cathedral in the city’s center, took a bus to this hill overlooking the entire city and even watched the UConn-Michigan State game at an Irish pub (Becky and a couple of her roommates are Huskies, so they were bummed). The gelato and pizza/pasta in Florence is unreal and those first four days were a blast, but they didn’t come close to the sights of Cinque Terre, our Sunday day trip and the culmination of my 11-day vacation.

“Cinque Terre” means “Five towns” in Italian. There are five tiny towns all on the rocky Mediterranean Coast. We took a train to the furthest town, planning to hike back to the nearest. Little did we know it was two-plus hours from No. 5 to No. 4. The hike was a bit challenging and steep (it didn’t help being in jeans; I didn’t know what to expect), but it was well worth it. It was me and six girls (which again, was a bit interesting) but we all had a blast. Some of the best views I’ve ever seen.

We took the train back to Florence and my spring break was all but over. We didn’t feel the deadly earthquake that struck northeast of Rome Sunday night, thank god. Monday was a day of trains, trams and planes, but finally we were back to trusty Templova.

What a vacation. On to Amsterdam tomorrow morning!

(I’m sure I left a lot out, but as usual, if I remember something important, I will add it later. Uncle Eric, the international people blog is coming soon, I promise.)