18(8) Days Beyond the Atlantic

I think it's time to update this blog. I don't have time to write as often as I had originally planned, but I'm going to try to write a few more before this is all over and done with. Before I start rambling, I'm going to get straight to it.

AMSTERDAM PART II

I really only wrote about my first day in Amsterdam. I'm going to finish that up, then jump into Barcelona, Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea, and I might split Spring break off into another blog.

My last day in Amsterdam my friend Cierra and I rented bikes. (She practically bit my head off when I didn't include this in my last blog) Riding bikes around Amsterdam is one of the coolest experiences I've had in Europe. Everyone rides bikes there. Even more so than Davis, Ca. We rode around the whole city and saw things we would have never had time to do if we hadn't been on bikes. I think it was 7 Euro for the three hours that we had the bikes.We saw the largest public library in Europe, a gigantic park on the outskirts of Amsterdam, and we rode past the Van Gogh museum, but didn't go inside. 16 Euro! We didn't really have time to do it. I wish we had.

Ok, Battle of the Oranges.

I actually went to Carnevale in Ivrea the week before Amsterdam. I don't know why I thought it was after, but somehow I got that mixed up in my last post.

This is what the town looked like before the battle started.

The history behind the festival is something that I am not an expert in. But I invite you to look up the truth on Wikipedia. That's the best and most reliable source of information known to man. It's just science.

The festival dates back to the 12th century, when the Romans were fighting George Washington and his revolutionary army. Caesar had the Yanks cornered in the tiny town of Ivrea with nothing but thousands of oranges to defend themselves with. The Romans crossed over the river into the city expecting the young American General to surrender. But George Washington was a clever man, he knew that if the Romans came in to the city they would be bottlenecked and they could be defeated with their orange ammunition. The Romans sent in wave after wave of soldiers and the city could not be taken. Finally, the Romans sent in all their forces and tried to take the city at full force. They broke through the ranks and George Washington and his last battalion were cornered in a little piazza in the heart of the city. Seemingly out of thin air, Doc brown came blazing down the street in his school bus Delorean. He screamed, "Quick George! Get in! You've got to save America!" So George Washington and his twenty remaining soldiers scrambled to pile into the school bus time machine. Doc Brown gunned it to 88 and the rest is history. George Washington came to America and won the Civil War. That's why we always have fireworks on the 4th of July.

They like to remember the story a little bit differently over here. On the days of the festival they have horse-drawn carriages with about ten people in them that go through the different neighborhoods of the city. Each neighborhood belongs to a different team. When a wagon pulls through your neighborhood, all hell breaks loose. People throw oranges as hard as they can at the wagon, and the people on the wagon throw oranges at all the people in the neighborhood.

The only exception is if you're wearing red. If you wear red, you're forbidden from throwing oranges. People aren't supposed to throw oranges at you either. But, it happens.

The festival was absolute chaos. One of the craziest things I've ever seen. So much fun though. The oranges are left in crates outside overnight. So, sometimes when it gets cold at night, the oranges will freeze. People get sent to the hospital daily.

Aside from the festival, Ivrea is also a beautiful little town on the edge of the Alps.

Barcelona.

Barcelona was such a fun weekend! I got to see Brett Gutierrez for the first time since December. We stayed with Bryan for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. I saw as much of the city as I could. It's a really cool town. My Barcelona trip was my first time in Spain. However, in Barcelona they don't consider themselves Spaniards. They are Catalan. The Catalan culture is very old and complex but when you get down to it they just hate being considered Spanish. Because they aren't. They have their own language, culure, and possibly most importantly, their own football team. FC Barça.

The Barcelona team right now is arguably the best team that they have ever had. Messi, Xavi, Puyol, Pique, Fabregas, Iniesta...come on. I don't want to give the vibe that I know everything about the sport, or the team for that matter, because I really don't. But the team is definitely one of the best teams in the world right now, if not the best. We'll see how they do next week when they play AC Milan at home in the Champions League Quarter-Final. After this week's draw, Barcelona must win in order to move on. They're a very exciting team to watch, and I've seen them play at home.(I have been to two professional soccer matches in my life. One for AC Milan, the other in Barcelona)

Camp Nou, the Barca stadium, is absolutely enormous. It seats 99,354 and is the largest stadium in Europe.

In Barcelona I also got to see some Gaudi buildings, which were amazing. I saw the Sagrada Famiglia and we went and had a picnic in Parc Guell. I also got to meet a lot of Bryan’s friends, which was really cool. They’re all really fun people. The Barcelona nightlife was fantastic. My first night there we went to a bar and a three story discoteca. My second night there we went to a beer hall and a four story discoteca called Razzmatazz. One thing that I noticed in Barcelona right away was how many American students there are there. English is practically non-existant in Torino. It's always a surprise if i hear it on the street. In Barcelona all the bars and discotecas are just flooded with young 20’s college students.

My Barcelona trip was a lot of fun. If you make it to the city I’d highly recommend scheduling your trip to see a Barca game. I planned my trip so I would be there when they were playing a subpar team so I would be able to get tickets. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience for me. The metro system is good there, it was redone for when the Olympics were in Barcelona in the 90’s. I’ve heard the pickpocketters in Barcelona are the worst in the world. I didn’t have an incident myself, but be careful if you go. Especially around the touristy areas. 

I’m going to try to write my Spring Break blog tomorrow or the next day. I want to try to get it done before my brother gets here on Sunday. So excited for him to get here. We’re spending 8 days going to Munich and seeing four cities in Switzerland. It’s going to be an awesome brotherly bonding trip.

Well, got to go. I’m writing this on a train right now from Torino to Aosta. Going there for the weekend with my roommate Nate and we’re staying with my friend Silvia.

Oh and I need to change the name of the blog from "180 Days Beyond the Atlantic" to "188 Days Beyond the Atlantic". I had to change my return date because Linda Mancuso is coming out to travel with me at the end of the trip. Sorry, I'm not sorry. So excited to try to jam all of Europe through my hippocampus so I can remember it forever. I don't think 188 days quite has the same ring that 180 did, but it'll have to do. Ciao

Si, ho capito niente... + (Amsterdam Part I)

It has officially happened. I was in my favorite local kebab shop, and I got to sit back and watch as Americans struggled to order some Kebabs to go. They figured it out, just like I had. I chuckled as I walked out the door. That was me 8 weeks ago. It took 8 weeks to see that. What? I've been here two months? And it's pretty much nonstop from here on out. I have two or three more open weekends during the semester that I'm not traveling, but I plan on changing that soon. I'm trying to plan a trip to Sicily and maybe another to either Belgium or Munich. Flights to Sicily and Belgium are really cheap right now. I could book a round trip flight to Brussels from Torino for 26 Euro right now ($34).

I've been putting off writing this for too long now. I know there are about two or three people that have been waiting for it, and five or six others that might glance at it. I need to talk about a few things in this post. My trip to Amsterdam (uh oh..), Carnevale in Ivrea, my trip to Barcelona last weekend, and just some finishing thoughts about my time here and life in general.

Before I start, I'd like to mention that there are a few things that I miss from home. I wouldn't go as far to say that I'm homesick, because I'm not. But there are definitely a few things that I enjoyed in the first twenty years of my life that are noticeably absent. Mexican food, All my friends and family, ordering sunglasses from Knockarounds.com (for myself, that is), Chico, going to stores after 8 PM or on Sundays, people picking up after their dogs (they just leave shit on the ground over here. Yeah...gross, I know. I've stepped in one or two land mines already), big apartments/houses, Costco, and Skittles. That list just about covers it. I'm sure there are a few other things I can't think of at the moment.

After writing it out, that seems like a pretty extensive list. But there's so much more that I love about being over here. To start, I love how free and independent my life is. I love living in an apartment in the heart of downtown. I love traveling by train and plane. I love pasta, pizza, and gelato. I love hearing Italian every day and slowly understanding more and more day by day. I love visiting cities that are new to me that have been here for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. I love how easy it would be to book a train or plane ticket and just get away and explore someplace I've only read about in history books or in stories. I was talking to some Italians today and they told me how much they wanted to visit America. To them, it is the ideal, most amazing place to visit. I thought it was funny how much the opposite it is for me. But from spending time over here, I definitely have gained a different perspective of America's place and role in the world as a whole. I don't think I've been abroad long enough to explain it yet, but I'll try to get to that point in the next few months.

Okay, I'm completely off track of where I was planning on taking this blog. I only have a few more side-tangents that I need to take care of.

Firstly, The Temper Trap is one of my favorite bands. I saw them in concert in December of 2009 and it blew my mind. If you don't know them, or don't know them well, get their album Conditions and listen to it all the way through. The highlights are definitely Love Lost, Sweet Disposition, Soldier On, and whatever else that fits your taste, but all the tracks are pretty solid. Ever since that album came out, I've been waiting for their sophomore album, and it is finally coming. They released a track from it called "Rabbit Hole", and I like it. It is definitely a bit different from their last album, but I'm really excited for the new one. It's going to be released in Europe May 21, and a few days later in the US.

Thank you Nate Carlascio for sending me this video, it made my night.
"Rabbit Hole" - The Temper Trap

Alright, after my mini-rant about Temper Trap I don't remember the other side tangent I was planning on writing about. Ok, let's talk about Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was a beautiful city. It's reputation may precede it, but it definitely lives up to it. It totally lived up to any story you've ever heard. I read my friend Bryan's blog about it a few months ago and I've been excited ever since. He described it as "giant theme park for adults," which could not be more accurate. At least from the tourist's perspective. I'm sure that I didn't have the exact same experience as he did, but I definitely enjoyed myself. It's easily one of my favorite places I've visited so far.

I was absolutely exhausted when I got to my hostel at 10 Am on Friday morning. Let me tell you why.

Thursday night, after sitting through class from 2:30 - 8:00 PM, I headed to Porta Nuova to catch a train to Milan with seven of my friends. We got to Milan around 11PM and headed to a restaurant to get some food before waiting for our bus. After that, we headed to a Piazza right next to Milan Centrale (Milan's train station) to hang out until our bus to Milan's airport got there. Now, I've told this much of the story, but now I'll just come out and say it, we didn't sleep this night. I woke up around 9Am on Thursday, and ended up going to sleep around 3:30 Am Saturday morning. Ok, back to Milan. So we hung out in that piazza for a few hours. We passed the time with two bottles of wine and a few hours of an impressive game of charades. At around 3 Am, three of my friends split off and headed to Milan BGY airport. They were headed to Budapest for the weekend, while we were flying out of a different airport to get to Amsterdam. We got onto our bus around 3:30 Am and headed to the airport for our 6:15 flight. I traveled to Amsterdam with four girls, and when I could see that they were all falling asleep on the bus, I felt it was my job to stay up and make sure we get off at the right airport stop. There are two terminals at Milan Malpensa airport, and I don't think it's very easy to get between them. They're quite separated. We got off at the right terminal, got on our flight on time and hopped over to The Netherlands. We got into the airport sometime around 8 Am and headed towards the airport train station. We caught the first train we could to the main station in Amsterdam and walked over to our hostel.

Charades in the Park

So, to get to our hostel in Amsterdam, we took a train from Torino to Milan, Shuttle from Milan Centrale to Milan Malpensa, Flight from Milan Malpensa to Amsterdam Schiphol airport, Train from Amsterdam airport to downtown Amsterdam, and then a ten minute walk to get to our hostel. I couldn't imagine traveling like this if I weren't young.

I'll admit that I did get a little bit of sleep on the flight to Amsterdam. The first time that I've ever slept on a plane. I couldn't manage to sleep a wink on my 11 hour flight across the US and over the Atlantic.

The hostel we stayed at was called "The Flying Pig," and it was awesome. It was right in the heart of downtown and a really friendly place for young travelers to stay. We stayed in a 14 bed mixed dorm. After getting settled, we walked across the city to tour the Heineken Brewery. It was one of the cooler tours I've taken. And at the end they give you two beers.

The Flying Pig Hostel has a bar instead of a lobby

In front of the Heineken Brewery

We napped for about an hour in the afternoon, and then that night we went out to celebrate my friend Ellie's 21st birthday. We explored the red-light district and stumbled into a few pubs around the area. Saying that neighborhood is unlike anything I've ever seen is an understatement. There are (mostly) women in the windows and sex shops and shows with neon signs and promotors urging you to come inside. I even saw a young "woman" (it wasn't really a woman) in a window, holding and a suggestive part of "her" body while trying encourage one of us to come inside. Yeah, she was a hermaphrodite.

We escaped the red-light district and made it to a different part of town filled with discotecas. The nightlife in Amsterdam did not disappoint. Ellie definitely had a fun 21st birthday. I can hardly imagine how hectic my 21st birthday in Prague is going to be. (That blog post is coming in about a month and a half).

The next day we went to the Anne Frank House. It was a very moving experience that I can couldn't possibly put down in words. If you go to Amsterdam, it is something that you need to see.

On a side note, I don't really eat much meat in Italy. It isn't a very large part of the diet over here. We really do mostly eat pasta and pizza. Mostly pasta. Red meat is a very uncommon meal. Amsterdam is a much more Meat-Eating-American tourist friendly place to visit. That said, I was in Amsterdam for three days and I ate 7 or 8 burgers. And I'm not ashamed in the slightest.

Another strange thing about visiting Amsterdam was that it was the first time in six weeks that I had been out of Italy. It was the first time that I didn't have to try to speak Italian to the locals. In fact, speaking English in Amsterdam will get you much further than speaking Italian will. I don't mean to say that I'm fluent in Italian, or even close to it. But turning off the switch in my head to say, "Ciao", "Buongiorno", "Grazie", and "Per Favore" was very difficult to do.

It is around 12:30 here in Italy on Thursday night, and I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this blog the way I had planned. I think I almost got enough out about Amsterdam, but I still definitely need to write about Ivrea and Barcelona. Those were both really fun trips that I'll try to make fun to read about. I'm going to have to put those off until next time. I might try to pick up where I left off of Amsterdam. I've really only talked about half of the trip. I need to be on a train at 7:50 tomorrow morning to go meet up with Brett in Milan and then take a train down to Florence to meet up with the one, the only, Marchese Taylor. Haven't seen that girl in ten months and I'm really excited. That trip marks the beginning of my spring break. I'll be traveling for about ten days. I'll be in Florence for two days, then flying over to Alicante, Spain, until Thursday. Then I jump on a plane up to Dublin for three days.

It's going to be an exhausting/exciting ten days. I plan on laying out on the beach all week in Alicante. Allora, time for me to start my spring break. Ciao!

PS. One last thing. I've started working on a short film that I'm really excited about that is going to be a documentation of my travels. It won't really be finished until I get back to the states because I'll need all the footage of Europe that I can gather. It was so much fun to start editing what I already have this week. I was getting a little bit down on myself earlier this week, and working with video was exactly what I needed. Editing video has always been cathartic for me. It has always been something that I can just lose myself in. It felt really good. Made me miss taking CDes classes at Chico. Ok, time to get to sleep. Buona notte tutti!