The Tale of the Schnitzel Hangover

After seven calm, travel-free weeks in Hamburg, I've once again been on the move. Destination: Wien, Österreich (Vienna, Austria). Every year, meteorology students from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland get together for a student conference known as StuMeTa. From Thursday through Saturday, students participate in lectures, workshops, and field trips. Unfortunately, when the signup for StuMeTa first began, I was unsure of my class schedule. Since I did not want to risk missing class, I postponed signing up. By the time I realized my classes were canceled, enrollment was already full. But alas, I still traveled to Wien, hung out with my friends, and had an absolutely amazing time. 

After a short 1.5 hour flight, Daniela and I arrived in Wien late Thursday evening. We settled into our freakishly nice hostel and then met up with a bunch of our meteorology friends for a drink. Tired from traveling and not wanting to ruin our sightseeing plans for Friday morning, Daniela and I headed back early while the others went out dancing.

Friday was amazing. I had not one, not two, but three maps to sightsee with. The tour guide barbie in me was as giddy as a schoolgirl. After a quick tour around Museum Quartier (Museum Quarter), Daniela and I met up with Kaitlyn and Jobst, one of the German exchange students from last semester. We meandered around downtown ogling over prominent churches and famous buildings. My favorite building was definitely the Stephansdom, a large church located smack dab in the center of downtown. It had brightly colored stained glass windows that, when the sun shone through, reflected crazy beams of colors all around the church. I instantly felt like I was in some sort of crazy religious disco when I walked in.

Museum Quartier - This is one of the three large buildings
that make up Wien's museum district.

Volksgarten with the enormous public library in the
background

Parliament

Rathaus - The Life Ball, a large HIV/AIDS awareness charity
event, was taking place in front of Wien's Rathaus last
weekend. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a good look
at it, but we did see a lot of people dressed up on the train.
At the time, we had no idea why men wearing large wings,
were riding the subway, but it all makes so much sense now!

Inside Stephansdom - large stained glass windows on either
side of the center aisle reflected vibrant colors all over the
church.

Mozart's house. I could not for the life of me
find this building. For the first time ever, the
 maps let me down. Thankfully, Jobst came to
the rescue and found it for me :)

We ended up losing Kaitlyn at this point in the tour. Very little sleep + dancing the night away left her tired and sluggish. So she bailed on us and went to sleep in the park. After she left, we walked through Stadtpark (the city park) and Schloss Belvedere, a large palace in the middle of the city. The palace stood proudly on top of a small hill overlooking its many gardens and fountains. Unbeknownst to us, the palace had actually been turned into an art museum. So we paid for admittance thinking that we were viewing a grand house, but instead we were greeted with room after room of artwork. You all know how much I love art museums, so I was definitely in my element...(sarcasm). It was seriously my worst nightmare come true - I ended up in an art museum without even knowing I was going into an art museum. I was caught completely off guard and had no time to mentally prepare myself. The only saving grace was I got to see the famous painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt that Daniela and I had been talking about only hours before.

Hanging out with Johann Strauss in Stadtpark.
I'm really starting to miss my violin...five months
is too long. It's going to think I don't love it anymore.

A large flower clock in Stadtpark 

Daniela, Jobst, and me in front of Schloss Belvedere

View from Schloss Belvedere overlooking the gardens
and downtown Wien

We saw a lot of other famous landmarks on Friday, but those were definitely my favorites. After day one of sightseeing, a few things became apparent to us. First off, Wien is the city of scaffolding. Seriously - it's everywhere! Every famous building seemed to be hidden behind massive amounts of scaffolding. I mean, I guess it's good that the city has money to maintain its historic buildings, but it was a bit irritating after awhile. Second, Wien is one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to. Most of the buildings are white, and they are highly ornamented with statues and metal work. A lot of the backstreets are also made out of cobblestone adding to the romantic aura of the city. Third, there are beautiful parks and gardens all over the city. I thought Hamburg had a lot of green space, but compared to Wien it might as well be a concrete jungle.

A typical street in Wien.

On Friday night, we met up with a bunch of our other friends and went to this "eat as much as you want, pay as much as you want" Pakistani restaurant. Basically, they had this buffet style table and you could help yourself to whatever you wanted. Then, on the way out, you went up to the cashier and payed however much you wanted. It all seemed quite strange to me, but the food was amazing so I didn't question it. I don't feel like this type of restaurant would work in the US. I think a lot of people would abuse the system and not pay for their meal - shows you how much faith I have in the American public. After dinner, we met up with more of our meteorology friends. By this point, there were probably 20 to 25 of us all hanging out. It was so much fun going to a random bar in a random city with all of our friends from Hamburg.

Saturday was hands down one of the best days I've had in Europe thus far. We started the day by going to Schloss Schönbrunn which is a large palace on the outskirts of Wien. There was a long wait when we got there, so we ended up walking around the gardens for two hours until it was our time to tour the palace. The palace was elegant and dramatic both inside and out, and it was easy to see why it had once been the summer home for the head of the kingdom.

Front entrance to Schloss Schöbrunn

Most of the gardens were flanked with tree lined paths that
ended at large fountains or monuments.

Gloriette

View of Schloss Schöbrunn and the accompanying gardens
from the Gloriette

Daniela and I had been craving dessert all week, so we
convinced Jobst to get overpriced cake with us at the
palace's restaurant. It was indescribably delicious and
worth every penny.

If you've made it this far in the blog, congratulations. Herein lies the most comical, and yet most painful, story from the trip: The Tale of the Schnitzel Hangover. My one goal when visiting Austria was to eat genuine Wiener Schnitzel, a traditional Austrian dish of breaded and fried veal. Quite often, Schnitzel is made with pork instead of veal. If this is the case, it cannot legally be called Wiener Schnitzel. Apparently, the term Wiener Schnitzel is protected by law in Germany and Austria and can only be applied to Schnitzel made from veal. Random, right? Anyways, twelve of us went to a place called Schnitzelwirt for dinner. According to the internet, this restaurant served some of the best Wiener Schnitzel in town. The internet also warned us that the portion sizes were huge, but being hungry college students, none of us heeded the warning. Our mistake. When they brought out the first round of Wiener Schnitzels, I thought "Surely they must be trying to save the waiter multiple trips to the kitchen by putting two meals on one plate." But the plates kept coming, and coming, and coming, and I quickly realized that it was all one meal. Cue nervous laughter...

Wiener Schnitzel - hammered veal covered in bread crumbs
and fried. Note the size of the Schnitzel in comparison
to the size of the lemon and keep in mind that half of the
bottom piece is being covered by the top piece. 

Just before eating the Wiener Schnitzel. It's hard to imagine
how people this happy could be so miserable mere minutes later.

First bite - amazing. Second bite - amazing. The problem was, it tasted so good that none of us wanted to waste any of it. So, we all kept eating, and eating, and eating. It quickly went from being the best tasting veal I've ever had to the most nauseating veal I've ever had. By the end, we were all stuffed beyond belief and feeling nauseously uncomfortable. Some people were even experiencing what we dubbed "Schnitzel fever. " Definition: a feeling of uncomfortable warmth accompanied by intense sweating after stuffing your face with Wiener Schnitzel. Those schnitzels nearly killed us. Apparently schnapps is supposed to help sooth an uncomfortable stomach, so we all did a shot of schnapps. Unfortunately, I was so full that my stomach was beyond repair. After finally getting the umption up to move, we shuffled over to a nearby bar to watch the Bayern München vs Chelsea football (soccer) game. It ended up being a really close game that went into overtime followed by a shootout. Unfortunately, Bayern lost in the last seconds of the game, so everyone was kind of sad and depressed. Afterwards, Daniela and I headed back to our hostel to get a few hours of sleep before our early flight out the next morning. When I went to bed, I still felt uncomfortably full from the Wiener Schnitzel, but the intense stomach pain was passing. Fast forward 4 hours to our early 5am wakeup alarm - the second I woke up I knew something wasn't right. I felt massively hungover, yet I only had one beer the night before. Suddenly it hit me - it was the damn schnitzel! I was officially experiencing a "Schnitzel Hangover." Not only did I feel awful, but I was sweating out oil and grease from every pore in my body. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to shower, so I had to fly back to Hamburg in my greasy, sweaty, hungover state. I felt really bad for the guy sitting next to me, but what was I to do? I figured that once I got up and started moving around I would feel better. Boy was I wrong. That darn Schnitzel Hangover knocked me out for 18 hours. Just the thought of fried food still makes my stomach churn. Moral of the story: beware of eating massive amounts of Wiener Schnitzel because if you don't get hit with the Schnitzel Fever you're bound to experience the painfully uncomfortable Schnitzel Hangover.

Tschüss!

Mission: Find Waffles

Sooo, it's been a while since my last update. Life got a thousand times busier after classes at the university started, and unfortunately I haven't had much time for writing. A lot of the past month has been filled with school work, hanging out with friends, and getting dominated by pregnant women at the gym. (Story: Daniela and I joined a gym and attend a lot of the classes. The instructor of this one yoga class was pregnant, and she completely showed us up. We were seriously made to look like fools. At one point, she wanted us to do the Crow Pose (Click for an image). Daniela and I just looked at each other and laughed. There was no way in hell either of us could do it.)

Before I sat down to write this blog, I took a look back at my planner to figure out what exactly I had done in the past month. Rather then writing a long, boring post, I've decided to highlight the three most important, and somewhat comical, events that have taken place since my last update.

• Pulling an all-nighter in honor of 'The Waffle': I've been in Hamburg for almost five months, and the American food cravings are starting to set in. One of the first cravings I had was for waffles - the big, fluffy, soft ones. German waffles are really dense and flat, and they just leave something to be desired. I was told back in April that you can get fresh Belgium waffles at the Fischmarkt (Fish Market), so I made it my mission to find these supposedly mouth-watering waffles. A traditional "Hamburg" thing to do is to stay up all night Saturday and go to the Fischmarkt at 5am on Sunday morning when it opens. The Fischmarkt is this massive market on the harbor that sells everything from (you guessed it) fish to clothing to trinkets to food. The fish come in every possible shape and size - big ones, small ones, living ones, dead ones, cooked ones, raw ones, ones with eyeballs, ones without eyeballs, etc. Vendor carts line the road leading up to the market, and people just meander along taking everything in. When you enter the building, you're eyes are immediately greeted by row after row of benches and your ears are greeted by the sound of a live band playing on the stage. Even though it's 5am, everyone is drinking, dancing, laughing, and having a good time. It's an interesting mix of people: half the people in the market are just starting their day while the other half are still finishing off the night before. The Fischmarkt is conveniently located close to the Reeperbahn, so a lot of people stay out all night partying and then make their way over to the market in the wee hours of the morning. Three weeks ago, Kaitlyn, Daniela, and I finally pulled the traditional all-nighter and meandered with all the other crazies over to the Fischmarkt at 5am. On the way there, Daniela and I thought it would be a great idea to play soccer with a random plastic milk carton we found in the street. In hindsight, this probably wasn't my brightest idea. Halfway to the market, I lost my footing and down I went. Three weeks later, my knee still hasn't fully recuperated. Ouch! Anyways, getting back to the original story... So we all went inside the market, quickly found the waffle vendor, and bought the most delicious waffles I've ever had. Halfway through devouring my waffle, I felt a sharp nudge from Kaitlyn. I looked up and found myself staring at The Queen Elizabeth (Click for an image). No joke! Kaitlyn and I looked at each other, quickly evaluated how sober we were, and then started laughing because we realized that we were sitting on the boardwalk, all dressed up, eating waffles, and staring at one of the world's most famous cruise ships. It was a fitting ending to a memorable evening. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me the night we
got waffles. But here's a picture I took of the Fischmarkt a
few months ago

• Kailyn's 21st Birthday: Turning 21 is a big deal for any American. Everyone wants to have a memorable 21st birthday filled with plenty of "Remember when..." moments. Even though my actual 21st birthday was somewhat of a disappointment, I will always look back fondly on my birthday trip to Vegas and laugh at my very own "Remember when..." moments. Well, that special day finally came for Kaitlyn, and it just happened to fall on a Friday. Kaitlyn had been planning her 21st birthday ever since the first night we partied on the Reeperbahn. So on Friday night, Kaitlyn got a huge group of friends together, and we all went to our favorite Irish bar. It was Kaitlyn's goal to have 21 shots on her 21st birthday, and I'm happy to say - Mission Accomplished. Kaitlyn really wanted the three of us to wear matching shirts, so we all bought shirts and wrote funny sayings on them. My shirt said: "die Nüchterne Freundin" or "The Sober Friend." I could think of no better gift (other then homemade brownies) to give Kaitlyn on her 21st birthday then sobriety and the accompanying promise of getting her home safe and sound at the end of the night. As expected, the night was one for the record books - one part drinking, one part drama, and one part tears. But, at the end of the night, all that mattered was that Kaitlyn made it home alive with a bucketload of hilarious "Remember when..." memories.

Our matching birthday shirts

The birthday girl and me

• Hafengeburtstag: Hamburg's Harbor celebrated its 818th birthday this past weekend. Every year, Hamburg throws a massive party in celebration of the Harbor's Birthday. The entire harbor fills up with rows of vendors and thousands of people. The city expects that over 2 million people visit each year. A bunch of famous ships come into port for the weekend, including frigates, cruise ships, and tugboats. One of the highlights of the weekend is the Tugboat Ballet. The world's best tugboat operators get together and put on a performance on the River Elbe. For one hour, a group of tugboats perform a "dance" in the port. It's apparently a really difficult job and requires a high level of expertise. It was really cool and all, but honestly I got bored watching it after 20 minutes. Afterwards, we shuffled along with the crowd taking in all the sounds and smells of the festival. Unlike crappy American carnival food, the food served by German vendors at large festivals is really amazing! So naturally I stuffed my face with sausage, fries, and bread. How German of me. Even though the festivities continued all weekend, I was completely exhausted from Kaitlyn's birthday party and still had a ton of homework to do. So, admittedly, I skipped out early and missed most of the celebration. 

Part of the Tugboat Ballet

A Ramsey Reunion in Hamburg

The best part about not having class on Friday is I can frivolously waste my Thursday evening without feeling guilty that I have notes to review or homework to complete before tomorrow. So tonight I hid my to-do list, put away my books, and watched Sex and the City. After about an hour of rotting my brain out, I had an epiphany - what better way to spend my Thursday evening then by finally posting about my parent's trip to Hamburg...

Two weeks ago, my parents came to visit me in Hamburg. This was the first time my Mother had been trans-Atlantic, so I wanted to makes sure that it was a memorable visit. The first day they were here, I took them down to the harbor. My Dad is a sucker for large boats and ports, so I knew it would just tickle him to death. And sure enough, it was like watching a kid in a candy shop. Even though it was a cold and dreary day, I think everyone had fun. I even got my mom to eat fish and chips out of a paper cone with a tiny wooden fork! I considered this to be the first of many small food victories during their stay in Germany.

Dad, Mom, and me in front of the harbor

We spent the rest of the weekend visiting all my favorite places in Hamburg. I had such a great time showing them around downtown and allowing them to discover for themselves why I love Hamburg. Most of the places I took them I had been before, but we took a canal boat tour through the richest neighborhood in Hamburg which was a first for me. Did you know that Hamburg has more bridges then London, Amsterdam, and Venice combined? Who knew! Some of the wealthiest districts in Hamburg are only visible from the canals, and we were privy to a front row view. Seeing the fancy, waterfront properties made me fantasize about what it would be like to be a millionaire. I kept telling my parents that it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor man. My mother quickly chastised me before catching on to the fact that I was kidding.  The yummiest part of the weekend came when we toured a chocolate factory in Hamburg. Even though we had no idea what anyone was saying, the chocolate samples at the end of the tour made it worth our while. Too bad I spilt chocolate all down the front of my shirt. Apparently you can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere. 

Inside the Rathaus

Mom & Dad in front of the Binnenalster.

Did you know that the 10th meridian east
runs straight through Hamburg? And yes, I
did crack a Where's Waldo joke while we
were standing on it.

On Saturday night I took my parents to the Reeperbahn. That's right, you read correctly - my parents partied in what's arguably Europe's best Red Light District. Not only did they drink with Kaitlyn, Daniela, and me, but Dad and I taught my mom how to do a tequila shot. The first stop of the night was our favorite 1 Euro tequila bar (where half naked women pole dance on the counter). After teaching my mom how to lick salt off her hand, shoot the tequila, and then follow it by biting a lemon, we watched her do not one...not two...but three shots of tequila! I have never been so proud of my mom! My Dad also did shots of tequila with us, but this is not so out of character for him. I was way more excited when he agreed to do a shot of Mexikaner with me (a traditional, spicy Hamburg shot made from tomatoes, chili peppers, clear liquor, and hot Mexican spices). 

Seconds after teaching my mom how to do a tequila shot...

Post tequila inside our favorite Irish pub

On Monday, I snapped back to reality and went to class. Meanwhile, my parents visited the quaint German town of Lüneburg in the morning and went to Miniature Wunderland that afternoon. All of my classes were randomly canceled on Tuesday because of a campus-wide lecture series. So, we hoped on a train and traveled two hours east to Schwerin, an old German town. What makes Schwerin super cool is the fact that it has a castle! The castle was stunning both inside and out. The gardens were immaculate, and the rooms of the castle were elegant and romantic. Every room looked like it was taken from a movie. I couldn't imagine actually living in a place like that. It must get lonely - I bet you could walk in and out of 20 rooms before seeing another living soul. I was a bit worried when we started the tour because one entire wing of the castle was filled with these creepy porcelain statues and bowls. But luckily the second half of the tour included viewing the ornately decorated rooms of the living quarters. 

Schwerin Castle with the gardens in the foreground. The
castle is beautifully situated on an island surrounded by
seven lakes. 

On Wednesday, I took my parents to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp located about 30 minutes outside Hamburg. What should have been an extremely depressing morning at the camp was completely overshadowed by a mortifying bus ride. It turns out that an entire class of 5th or 6th graders were taking the same bus as us. In general, I'm not a huge fan of large masses of children. I find them to be rather obnoxious when they're all grouped together. Come to find out, German school children are a whole lot more brazen then the kids I went to elementary school with. We're on the bus heading to the camp, and this bratty little boy asks me in English: "Do you speak English?" I respond, in English, "No, I don't speak English." Well, my sarcastic joke went right over his dumb, pin brain head. As the bus ride continued, this brat begins to say rude things and make rude gestures towards me, including but not limited to singing "I'm sexy and I know it" and making kissing noises. Meanwhile, his horny little friend sitting behind me chimes in with "ow oww" noises and flipping his tongue out at me. At one point, he makes the wildly rude hand gesture mimicking a penis going into a vagina. I'm ready to give these kids a piece of my mind, but my parents keep telling me to stay cool and be nice to them. I'm getting verbally harassed by 5th graders, and they're telling me to stay calm! Thankfully the brats got off about 20 minutes before we did, so I had some time to vent and rant before arriving at the camp. When we got to the camp, we found that many of the original buildings had been torn down after the war. Just like Dachau, pebble-filled plots marked where the  buildings used to stand. Even though the original buildings were gone, you could just tell that the place reeked of sorrow, pain, and suffering. A large museum was created in one of the main buildings. It had everything from personal memoirs, to old stripped uniforms, to images depicting the cruelty of the camp. This is now the second time I've visited a concentration camp, and I can say with utmost certainty that it will be my last. I do not have the stomach to return to another camp before leaving Germany. 

Part of Neuengamme Concentration Camp

For their last day in Hamburg, my parents climbed to the top of St. Michaelis and experienced the breathtaking, birds-eye view of the city. I thought this would be a cool way to end their trip - looking down on the city they just spent seven days exploring. That evening, I took them to the DOM - a large fair that comes to Hamburg four times a year. It's hard to explain the enormity of the DOM. It's like an American carnival on steroids. There are tons of rides, endless food stands, and a large three drop, five loop roller coaster. It's definitely one hell of an experience.

Ok, so here's the deal. No summary of a Ramsey family adventure would be completely without a mention of the food consumed during the trip. So here you have it - we ate, and ate, and ate all the amazing food that Hamburg has to offer. We had German food, Italian food, Portugese food, seafood, pastries, pretzels - you name it, we ate it. The great thing about Hamburg is that it's a really international city. Not only are the people diverse, but the food choices are as well. In fact, it's really hard to find traditional brauts and sauerkraut in restaurants. This is due to the fact that what most people consider traditional German food is actually food from south Germany, or Bavaria. Instead, the traditional food of Hamburg is seafood. Either way, I was sure to give my parents an all around delectable dining experience. And I have to say, I actually had one of the best meals of my life that week. There's this little seafood restaurant near my old language school that only serves one meal each day. You just show up and order the meal, regardless of what it is. Well, the day we went they were serving this potato, sauerkraut, salmon dish in a white, butter cream sauce. Let.me.tell.you. This was easily the best seafood I've ever had. It makes me drool just thinking about it. 

World's best seafood meal

As a final aside, trying to teach my parents how to say basic German words was hilarious. I love them, but I now understand why I'm so bad at learning foreign languages. Rather then trying to explain it, I'll leave it up to Phoebe and Joey:

http://youtu.be/DqwzvtjeYBQ

Tschüss!

Back to Reality

"Summer Break" is officially over and my classes at the Universität Hamburg have finally started. After three months of going to German language class every day, it's weird to wake up and know that I have to study something other then German. My study abroad is officially through the Meteorology Department, but the majority of my classes are from the Integrated Climate System Sciences program at the University. The degree I'm taking classes from is mandated to be taught in English, so while Kaitlyn and Daniela sweat bullets over learning in German, I get to listen to all my lectures in English. I guess being a Master's student has some perks after all...

My classes are all really neat, but my brain is completely overwhelmed. I'm taking 3 science classes, 1 modeling class, 1 economics class, and 2 policy classes. I've been studying pure science for so long that I think my brain has forgotten how to process something that is not physics or math based. All my classes seem pretty doable, although I'm a bit worried about my economics class. I've never taken economics before, so I have absolutely no background on the basic concepts. We'll see how that works out for me...

There are definitely similarities between classes in the US and Germany, but the differences were way more noticeable. First of all, classes in the university only meet once a week. Back in Oklahoma, most classes meet 2 to 3 times a week, so I kept feeling like I was skipping class even though I wasn't. Another major difference is that students knock on the desk at the end of each lecture. Apparently it's meant to symbolize that they've enjoyed the lecture. When it first happened, I had no idea what was going on. I just kind of followed suit and awkwardly knocked on my desk. I still feel really silly doing it, but I suppose it's a custom I'll get used to overtime.

Unrelated to school, I moved into my new room last week. Our lease expired on March 31st, and the three of us moved to new student dormitories closer to the university. Daniela and Kaitlyn were placed in the same dormitory, but I was placed in one about 25 minutes away. It's really lonely knowing that they're no longer one floor away! It's definitely been a change, but I'm sure I'll adjust soon. Before the move I lived in a 4 bed apartment, but now I live on a hall with 8 other people. I feel like I've been thrown back to my freshman year of college!! Everyone on my hall is super friendly though. They were all really welcoming and immediately made me feel at home. The people on my hall are also really diverse. A few of them are not from Germany but rather are here as Erasmus (European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) students. It's been neat meeting other study abroad students who are in a simliar situation to me.

I was a little worried about my new dorm because I had heard rumors that it was the "party dorm." But, I was pleasantly surprised when I got here. Sure there's a large bar in the dorm, but it's really not that bad. It's super quiet during the week, and it only gets rowdy on the weekend. I went to the bar on Friday with a few of my new roommates, and it was super crazy! The bar is two stories tall, has a large dance floor, and a room for playing pool and table hockey.

I think that's all for now. This past week was wicked low key - I just caught up on sleep, went to class, and settled into my new place. Until next time...

Tschüss!

Italian Food Hangover

Destination: Verona and Milan

Ryan Air: a budget airline that flies you all over Europe for really cheap. The catch: They are freakishly stingy with their carry on baggage requirements. You are only allowed one carry on, and it must be less then 20 cm wide. We were in the middle of an eight day trip that included hiking in the Alps and swimming in the Mediterranean. There was no way our backpacks were less then 20 cm wide, especially once we shoved our purses into them. The fee to check a bag was somewhat outrageous, so rather then paying we decided to "beat the system" by wearing as many clothes as necessary until our bags fit within the limit. By the time we were done, I was wearing nine shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, and winter boots...and oh yeah, I had toiletries hidden in my water bottle which was shoved down the sleeve of my coat. Keep in mind that it's over 70 degrees outside and we're about to fly into one of the most fashionable cities in Europe. We looked absolutely ridiculous, and you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as we made it to the connecting bus in Milan we were stripping everything off. The ironic part about the whole affair is that when I got to the gate, the attendant told me she liked my shirt...are you kidding me?!

9 shirts, 2 pants, a scarf, and a sweatshirt. We're bringing
sexy back.

Our hostel in Milan was easily one of the weirdest places I've stayed at. We get there, and the woman behind the desk immediately reminded me of Mrs. Meers from Thoroughly Modern Millie. She took our passports and told us to make ourselves comfortable upstairs. We then, for all intensive purposes, got thrown out of her office and told to come back in 10 minutes. So we went upstairs and found that our room was once again open to the outside world - there were no locks. Now, I was fine with this concept in Switzerland, but it's significantly stranger to be in the middle of the city and have no locks. After checking in, we went to the local pizzeria downstairs for dinner. It turns out that the pizzeria was owned by an Asian family, so our first meal in Italy was Asian-inspired Italian pizza. Our dinner was made even more enjoyable because we got to watch a prostitute stand on the corner and turn down three different men. She must have been expensive!

On Tuesday, we traveled two hours east of Milan to the town of Verona. Francesca, a really good friend from our German language class, met us there for the day. Verona was a really cute town. It had a good mix of traditional and modern Italian architecture. The most famous building in  Verona is the Arena Di Verona. They were setting up for a concert while we were there, and it was really cool to see how something so old and historic can still be so practical in the modern world. As we were walking by the Arena, Francesca warned us to stay away from the Romans because they would try and get you to take pictures with them. As soon as she said this a Roman came over and started hugging me and walking with me. It must have been fate!

Francesca, Kaitlyn, and me in Verona

Unwanted attention from a random Roman man

Arena Di Verona - built in AD 30 this arena started as a theater.
Today, it is still used as a venue for concerts and operas. 

Inside the Arena Di Verona. They were setting up for a concert,
so we just sat there for a while taking pictures.

The other major tourist attraction in Verona is Juliet's house from Romeo and Juliet. The house itself has nothing to do with Shakespeare's make believe characters, but it's still fun to go and take pictures of the balcony. There is this statue of Juliet outside the house, and they say good luck will come to anyone who touches her right breast. Poor Juliet is basically raped all day every day... You can also write letters to Juliet asking her for love advice, so on the train ride to Verona, Kaitlyn and I both composed our letters. It was kind of silly but fun none the less. I assumed that the letters would be thrown out at the end of the day, but apparently a bunch of volunteers in the Juliet Club respond to them. I almost wish I put my address on the letter just to see what kind of response I would have gotten!

Touching Juilet's breast in the hopes of getting good luck. 

The famous balcony from Romeo and Juliet.

Getting ready to mail my letter to Juliet.

When you think of Italy, what's the first thing that pops into your mind? For me it's the food - pasta, pizza, cannolis, gelato, wine, etc. Kaitlyn and I both made sure to get our fill of Italian food while in Verona. I'm too embarrassed to admit how much I ate that day, but let's just say we really enjoyed ourselves. In summary: Florence has the best pizza, Verona has the best pasta, and Barcelona (surprisingly) has the best gelato. The uncontested food winner of the day came from a local pastry shop. I went into this small bakery just outside the town square, and I might have tried one or two or three or four (or more) pastries... I struck gold with the last one. I have no idea what it was called, but it was this flaky pastry filled with chocolate cream and topped with a hard chocolate glaze. It was seriously the most amazing pastry I've ever tasted. It was so good that I may have lost control of myself for a moment. Hopefully Kaitlyn isn't permanently scarred...I guess we're even now after the whole Barcelona hostel stripping incident.

Enjoying the most amazing pastry ever.

Even though I'm allergic, I couldn't go to
Italy and not have a glass of wine.

I'm generally not a big fan of cannolis, but this one was
actually really good. It easily surpassed the ones served at
Mike's Pastry Shop in the North End.

Kaitlyn and I were both in a food coma by 5 pm. Unfortunately our train back to Milan wasn't until 8 pm so we just kind of meandered around Verona until we finally collapsed on a park bench. We ended up entertaining ourselves by having a mini photo shoot in the park for an hour. We struck gold with the photo below - I have never seen a picture that so accurately captures the personality of everyone involved.

Favorite shot from the shoot

Showing off our pearly whites.

On Friday, we walked around Milan for a few hours before catching our flight back to Hamburg. Honestly, we didn't see much of Milan. After eight days of traveling and sightseeing we were pretty burnt out. We went and saw the Duomo (Catholic Church) and Castello Sforzesco, but other then that we really didn't see much. Surprisingly, the 10 minutes we spent at the Duomo were probably the most stressful 10 minutes of the entire trip. We stepped out of the subway station and were immediately bombarded by gypsies trying to sell us braided bracelets and corn kernels to feed the birds. It was unreal. I thought the gypsies in Barcelona were bad...apparently I had never experienced gypsies from Milan before. They kept draping their weird braided bracelets across my arm and shoving kernels in our face. We seriously could not get away from them. They just kept following up and attacking us. It was so bad that our only option was to seek shelter in the church (I never thought I'd utter those words). After that, we spent the rest of the day eating Italian food. I'm fairly certain I gained 5lbs during my time in Italy. I've been going through massive food withdrawals since I got back to Hamburg. It's amazing how a normal amount of food no longer satisfies me and my stretched out belly!

Duomo of Milan - we ended up going inside to escape the
Gypsies roaming around the square.

Shopping in Milan: Prada on one side. Louis Vuitton on
the other. Those are my two favorite stores to shop in! ;)

Castello Sforzesco - the "castle" actually looked more like
a fort.

We flew Ryan Air back to Hamburg, but this time we were under the influence of a nasty food coma, so we couldn't care less about the bag restrictions. We packed our bags as tightly as possible and just hoped for the best. Thankfully, the guys in front of us tried to get these massive tennis bags on the plane, and they ended up annoying the gate attendant so bad that by the time we got to her she was too flustered to care. I'm not even sure she looked at our bags. My sincerest thanks to those two men for trying to carry on enormous bags. You saved us each 40 Euro!

Well folks, that just about wraps up our eight day "Last Hurrah" trip. We had an amazing time, but I think both of us were excited to get back to Hamburg. In the word's of Dorothy: "There's no place like home."

Tschüss!

Girly drinks in Barcelona

Destination: Barcelona

After our amazing experience in Switzerland, Kaitlyn and I were both flying high when we finally got to Barcelona on Sunday night. This excitement quickly ended when we realized we had no idea how to get to our hostel. Luckily these two American exchange students overheard us talking and offered to help. Thanks to them, our trip from the airport to the hostel went from potentially catastrophic to somewhat orderly (relatively speaking). When we got to our hostel, we discovered that they put us in a 2 bed room instead of the 4 bed dorm we paid for - lucky, right? The only problem was that the AC didn't work so it was super hot and stuffy. This was apparently a huge problem for Kaitlyn....(Background: we were way overdressed for the warm Spanish weather, and we had just walked over a mile from the airport drop off point.) We weren't in the room for more then two seconds when all of a sudden Kaitlyn started frantically throwing things off her body. First her bag. Then her boots. Then her clothes. I just stood there completely dumbfounded because she gave me no warning whatsoever. Plus, she looked like a complete maniac so it was hard to look away. It's like when you pass a car accident on the highway - you know you shouldn't look but you can't help it! Anyways, that little "incident" left us giggling for hours.

Our hostel was in a really cool part of town. It was right off of La Rambla (a famous street in Barcelona) in a hip Plaza filled with restaurants and bars. The best part about the Plaza was that it contained this awesome tapas and cocktail bar with the most amazing girlie drinks. Something about being in Barcelona made us really want fruity frozen drinks. Hands down the best girly drink of the evening was the frozen Passion Fruit Daiquiri....cue the drooling...

Someone wrote a love letter to me on the bottom of my bunk.

Beach Town = Girly Drinks

Plaza Reial - a prime location for our hostel

We spent most of Monday walking around the city getting a feel for Spanish life and Spanish culture. There were a few famous sights we wanted to see, so we made a point to walk by those. The one downside to visiting Barcelona during the week is the fact that there were school field trips everywhere. A new pet peeve of mine is screaming children who stand in masses blocking the road so you can't pass. We have a really good friend who grew up in Barcelona, and she recommended we meander around Barri Gotic and Born, two historic districts in downtown Barcelona. We took her word for it and got intentionally lost in the intricate maze of alleyways. It was really fun to just walk down a street having no idea what you would find at the other end.

There was a ridiculous number of mopeds in
Barcelona.

Gaudí, a famous designer from Barcelona,
designed a bunch of odd looking houses
throughout the city. These are just two examples.

There were a lot of fountains and tree lined streets in the
city center.

Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sangrada Família - a large
church that was designed by Gaudí. Construction on this
church began in 1882. It is projected to be finished by 2026.
This church is a source of contention among the artistic
community in Barcelona because many feel it no longer
reflects Gaudí's original vision. Rather, they feel it is
now being built as a tourist attraction.

We had to visit a bullfighting ring while in Spain...

Barcelona Beach

A typical street in Barcelona

One of the many alleyways we explored

Hands down the best part about Monday was eating paella at a legit Catalunya restaurant near the beach. Paella is a traditional Spanish dish made from rice and seafood. It was fantastic! As an added bonus, I got to shell shrimp for the first time in my life. I have to admit, having the shrimp's black beady eyes staring up at me while I was doing it made me feel like a horrible person. But no worries, I powered through the emotional pain and relished in my victory ;). Keeping with our desire to experience Spanish culture, we returned to our hostel after lunch for a siesta, or afternoon nap. Perhaps it wasn't a true siesta since we spent most of the time having girl talk, but it's still fun to say I partook in the Spanish tradition of napping.

Amazing, delicious, out of this world Paella

Like I mentioned in my blog about Switzerland, Barcelona was Kaitlyn's city of choice. Thus, she had a lot of control over what we did during our visit. Before we left Hamburg, she found something called "Nasty Mondays" online. The only thing she could tell me was that it took place at a random club in downtown Barcelona. Reluctantly, I promised her we could go. Well, Monday night rolled around and we decided to go to a bar before tackling Nasty Mondays. We ended up meeting these people from Germany, so while Kaitlyn pre-gamed off cheap drinks from the friendly bartender, I practiced my German. Good deal, yeah? I've gotten really good at telling people: "Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch." A few cheap tequila shots later we finally make it to Nasty Mondays. It turned out to be this really big club with everything from house to rock to indie to garage music. I honestly wasn't a huge fan, but Kaitlyn was having such a blast that I let her do her thing. On the way home, we kept getting berated by gypsies trying to sell us these red cans filled with an unknown substance - I was convinced that it was Coke, but Kaitlyn thought it was beer. Regardless of what these cans contained, it was super annoying. Every 10 steps another gypsy would approach us trying to sell us beverages. I finally just told them to bugger off.

On Tuesday, Kaitlyn decided that she wanted to go to a nude beach. So, we hoped on the subway and headed north of the city. When we got there we were greeted by a sea of really old, droopy men. Needless to say, we booked it out of there asap and headed to the beach just to its south. Both of us were somewhat disappointed with the beach. It was kind of dirty, and the sand was really uncomfortable. It wasn't the soft, silky sand that you might expect. Rather, it was more of a mixture between sand and rock. Either way, we sat on the beach basking in the sun for a few hours before going on a hunt for more seafood. One positive thing that came out of our beach day was I finally got to put my toes in the Mediterranean Sea. Even though the water instantly numbed my feet and legs, I can check "wading in the Mediterranean" off my bucket list.

A beach just to the north of downtown Barcelona

On Tuesday night, Kaitlyn and I met up with some friends from Hamburg who were also visiting Barcelona. We went out to eat, visited the Magic Fountain, and then finished the night at our our favorite frozen cocktail bar. Funny story about Tuesday night: we were sitting on the steps behind the Magic Fountain when this gypsy (carrying the mysterious red cans) came up to us and started saying things in Catalan. After about a minute of confusion we realized that he was trying to tell Kaitlyn to keep her clutch in her lap. Apparently, pickpocketing is a huge problem in Barcelona, and he was warning her that she was an easy target. How nice of him! He started to walk away, but about 2 minutes later, we saw him bolt back up the stairs with the red cans hidden under his coat. Behind him were two cops on motorcycles. The cops passed him but stopped his fellow gypsy friends. He then hid the red cans in the bushes and took off. Apparently, it's illegal for gypsies to sell things, so he was basically running from the cops. After the cops left, he came back and started looking for his red cans. Ironically, he couldn't remember which bush he put them under! So, being the kind folk that we are, we directed him to his cans.

The Magic Fountain in the foreground with the National
Museum of Art of Catalunya in the background. The Magic
Fountain combines color, light, and music in a water show.
I'm guessing it's similar to the fountain at The Mirage.

Our friends from Hamburg

Kaitlyn and me in front of the Magic Fountain

Wednesday was a complete bust - 100% fail on our part. We decided that for our last day in Spain we would go to Montjuïc, a large hill just outside Barcelona that is home to Anella Olímpica (the Olympic Ring from the 1992 Olympics), large botanical gardens, and Castell de Montijuïc. We took a cable car up to the Olympic Ring, and when we got inside we found ourselves staring at a large, boring stadium. I think I was more impressed the first time I walked into OU's football stadium then I was seing the Anella Olímpica. We then tried to walk around the gardens and up to the top of the hill, but we couldn't find the entrance. We seriously walked around the perimeter for at least 30 minutes, but it was completely blocked off on our side. We finally found a cable car that would take us directly to the Castell de Montijuïc, so we decided to take the easy way out and ride to the top. Well, we finally got there and I could not figure out how to get into the damn Castle. After about 30 minutes of failed attempts I was hot, frustrated, and ridiculously annoyed with yet another group of screaming school children. So, completely discouraged and about to pull my hair out, Kaitlyn decided that it was time to get me away from Montjuïc...probably a good idea in hindsight. It was a dismal end to our time in Barcelona, but at least we can look back fondly on Monday and Tuesday. Tschüss!