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Germany
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Winter Break 2008- Berlin
Days 8,9,10 BERLIN!!
Population: 3.4 million
BERLIN!!! Wow. I love love love Berlin and this entry will for sure be a million pages so I'll abreev like it's my job. Berlin arrive, find hostel in Charlottenburg area, go to Charlottenburg Palace (home of Sophie Carlotte wife of King Frierich grandmom of Fred the great...walk around, go to Museum Berrgreun collection of Picasso, Klee, Gioccametti the sculpteur of those skinny people, and Matisse. Walk around Christmas market there (Charlottenbergmarkt) get potatoes in a bowl and eierpunch (eggnog with Bailey's) keep the glass its cute you pay 2 euro downposit. See lots of german christmasy stuff- hats and scarves, jewelry, foodwise chocolate covered fruit on sticks, marshmallow mounds, sauerkraut, brats in tiny buns, potatoes and bacon, mushrooms in cream sauce, broiled meat and onions and vegetables, kinderpunsch, eierpunsch, apfelpunsch, glunwein...etc. Go back to hostel and get settled/check emails/read/sleep!
Day 9 BERLIN!!! Up early early head to grocery store for provisions, metro to Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg, see the concentration camp which was the administrative headquarteres of the SS operations, it's a big triangle only the prisoners barracks part was conserved, big memorial in the middle with orange triangles on this giant pillar type thing, execution trench, shoe testing track, medical experiments here too, krematorium that was blown up so only parts remain of the foundations, commander's house still there, soviet special camp from 1945-50, its in the former GDR, cold, saw prisoners kitchens with drawings on the walls and latrings in teh barracks and the laundry house..walked from the train station twenty minutes same route prisoners took through the town, quiet neighborhood houses right up next to the camp. Camp shown off to Poles and army commanders since its right neat Berlin, kitchens have "fine meals" people downstairs peel rotten potatoes alld ay, watchmakers, counterfeiting operation there, klinterwerks brick makers hard labor camp oustide of camp, over 30 division camps, all throughout the area no longer exist but where prisoners were sent for labor each day, mainly a man's camp again until Hungarian jewish women came 1944. Back to Berlin for walking tour of city..excellent, learned all my german history and twentieth century stuff again, but the guide was amazing (annabel). Saw Brandenburg Tor, Unter Den Linden Street, Reichstag with new glass dome, Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled the baby, the French and American embassies right in Parisierplatz in front of Brandenburg tor, setting up for new year's there too, saw Holocaust Memorial and stood above Hitler's bunker (they destroyed it), saw one of the few Nazi buildings still there all grey granite/concrete impressive, huge, over huge and was the air force ministry, somehow the allies missed it (but they managed to hit the royal opera and destroy it twice, Hitler rebuilt it during the war because he loved opera so much), now the building has a giant mural of socialism at its best on its side and on the ground this giant glass plate with a picture of strikers from 1952 the first strike against socialism that was brutally broken up by Russian tanks, first and only of its kind until 1989 but east germany started the agitation against the USSR, saw what's left of the wall and lots of graffitied parts still intact, took pics with these cute bears kind of like Chciago cows all around the city, the giant Steiff bear at one of the souvenir shops, saw Checkpoint Charlie and the sign saying you are leaving the American sector, had cappucinos and croissants right near there at Aroma Café on Friedrichstrasse, their really upscale shopping street that was lit up very nicely, saw this giant chocoalte shop Faussner and Rausch that we later went in and it used to be the royal chocolatier and now makes sculptures out of chocolate (the brandenburg to, titanic, Reichstag) saw the square with the French Church and the exact same church on the opposite side called the German church and the Concerthaus, designed by Schinkel because it has lots of columns (Gendarmmarkt) saw this memorial that used to be the royal guardhouse and its roof is open so the weather comes in, it's a big room with a solitary statue of mother holding wounded son on battlefied in the center, very somber, saw royal armshouse/military building that's pink but now the german history museum, saw the Lustgarden where royalty would go take a stroll and the museumisland (with the pergamon museum which has lots of middle eastern artifacts and its going to be closed for the next ten years for reconstruction) saw St Hedwig's cathedral built for the catholic poles of Silesia when Fred the great gained the territory in 1760, one of the few cathedrals in Berlin, saw the gaping hole where the Royal palace used to be (torn down by the GDR in 1950) saw the royal library on the square with berlin on ice and across from the famous Humboldt Unbiversity where Einstein taught, saw the memorial to the bookburnings in 1933 (a room with white empty shelves underground you can see through plexiglass hole down), saw the radiotower put up in the GDR to show their technological strength but really heelped by Swedish engineers, saw the Travi cars that used to be the most popular in the GDR and now are only used for tourist "safaris" because they are so bad for the environment and just not good cars, saw lots of starbucks and mcdonalds and some burger kings...eventually the tour ended and we went to the jewish museum and inside to a Hanukkah market that was not too spectaculy, then over to the christmasmarket we saw on unter den linde across from the lustgarden and walked around for a while, got latkes and applesauce and leslie got paella, they had the usual stuff again, ate under heat lamps with music performers around us, went to Checkpoint Charlie museum but just read the brochure no go in, a lot of artifacts from escape attempts are there, then went home.
Day 10 BERLIN!!! Up early early again to the train station to Weimar, walk around Weimar for two seconds see interesting architecture, bus to Buchenwald camp, veru different than the others because the entire camp is still there, the quarry, all the SS houses or the land where they used to be (even the dog kennel), the armaments factory and industrial works, its also in the middle of nowhere in a forest, where Elie Wiesel was liberated, saw an art exhibit and the little history museum (the door on this one does not say Arbeit Mach Frei like all the other it says Jedem Das Seine (to each his own) confusing...very very cold there. Train back go to Tiergarten and the flea market there see lots of doorhandles, candelabra, some random jewish stuff (made it seem like a german market) and normal antiques/knick knacks, jewelry, etc went over to checkpoint charlie and got passport stampes from the GDR side of the checkpoint (so named because it's the third one in berlin, first is Alpha, then Bravo, then Charlie). Went to Reichstag to go in and climb the dome but the line's long, we'll be back tomorrow, instead go to St Wilhelm Kirche that has half a roof (its kind of like a space ship shape, very large, never restored after WWII bombing. Now a big shopping area in West Berlin called Europaplace. Also had a nice Christmas market. Tried kinderpunsch, got stollen bread (very dense, filled with raisins and dried fruits, much better and sweet than expected) back to hostel. Pack up to leave Berlin tomorrow, so sad!! We learned sooooo much history in the past three days and basically got inundated with information, we also put our bodies in burnout mode walking around so much, but it was totally totally worth it. Also, the Berlin mascot/symbol is a giant bear, which is clearly a sign, because I heart bears.
Day11 Berlin/ Loooooooooooooong train ride to Paris. Up early, get stuck on the lovely S Bahn system in front of Karstadt sports for an hour and some, finally make it to the Reichstag/Bundestag/Parliament and climb up the new glass dome with the dual staircase one up one down and you can see the whole city though its fairly cloudy and dreary today, there's a giant funnel thing in the center to funnel in sunlight to power and heat the building and its very shiny metallic, looking down you can see into the plenary chamber of parliament though no one's there today. leave, back to hostel stop at grocery store for food get Ritter chocolate, chocolate yogurt bars, musli, etc good train food, off to Hauptbahnhof chill out for a while in the cold train station and now we're on the train to frankfurt and then to paris (where as of yet we have no where to stay) very final tour. Turns out we got redirected Frankfort to Saarbrucken, who knows where that is, then paris. A little stressfu but we made it before the midnight bell on Notre Dame tolled and actually did manage to get beds in a hostel with a quick phone call, slept, up early for breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate, say bye to my travel buddy Leslie, and train to Aix. Have to smile to be back in this cute little city with so many good memories, even though I'll miss Leslie and Berlin and our whole journey. At least now I can take an amazing shower with a real towel, change clothes, and be in a stable location...for twenty four hours.
Winter Break 2008- Munchen
DAY 7: MUNICH!!, Germany
Population: 1.3 million
Munchen starts with a nap at our amazingly comfy new hostel beds. Breakfast downstairs and out into the dead city on Christmas day. Walk down through the old medieval town gates on to the main shopping street Sendlinger Strasse. Make it to the city's heart Marienplatz with the Rathaus (parliament building) in the center and a big column dedicated to the Virgin Mary, got a fre tour of Munich by our friend Tom from Australia. Tom first showed us the famous Muncih glockespiel, a bellower that at 11 and 12 plays the bells and it has its figures dance around, firsta t the mariage of Wilhelm and his wife and there's a joust between Lorraine and France and Lorraine (at the time German territory) wins. The bottom scene was a cooper's dance, coopers being those who make barrels, when the plague routinely came through munich they would lose all their busienss so they started doing this dance outside to show the people the sickness was past and they could come out and buy more barrels of beer, the king liked it so much he decreed that once every seven years the coopers should do their dance across Germany and they still do, next time in 2012. Onwards, we got a little history of Munich (became a kingdom from a duchy in 1806 thanks to Napoleon, the german gave him 36,000 troops to fight Russia and married his daughter to nap's stepson, it has always been one of if not the richest part of Germany, fused in 170 with thes rest of the country, named Munich from Municha which means monk and that's their symbol of the city, there used to be lots of monateries in the area brewing beer. Walked around the Frauenkirche, the largest church with two towers and copper bulbs on top built in the 1400s in only twenty years, story of a deal with the devil not to build any more windows and the devilw ould help build it in twenty years because from the front the inner main columns block all the large windows, you can't tell it has huge stained glass windows. We went in during mass, heard the organ, went out, walked around the old city saw Altepeter church which is another old brick church with a cannon ball stuck in the side form the Swedish invasion during the 30 years way (1618-1648). Used to be a cemetery on the premises and the tombstones of the rich which were put up on the church wall are still there, those who were not rich enough had theirs ground up to be part of the square's cement. Walked and saw a little memorial to Kristillnact at the largest department store that was owned by Jewish proprietors, saw the Hofbrauhaus (made 1589) the largest beer house in Munich, famous for many reasons one of which it being the seat of Nazi power, all of Munich really, had these big tables and ditches or drains underneath so you could just undo the flap on your lederhosen and pee sitting and drinking, no bathrooms, had walking sticks guide the bee to avoid backlash (yeah gross I know) buy ingenious, in the bathrooms have vomitorium to flush vomit down just the right height. Went down the fancy shopping street Maximilienstrasse, but today it looked like any other street, did find my Frey Wille jewelry store that I like (we saw it in Venice as well) learned that 85-90% of the city was destroyed by allied bombing so basically all the old stuff is new, even those first two churches were completely rebuilt after the way so they're not really ancient anymore but have history nonetheless, the people of Munich when they knew they were going to be bombed took pictures of everything, the tiles on the ground, the little statues, everything, so it was all replaced to the tee. In one church nothing was left and the people had taken pictures but the pics were in black and white so they couldn't replicate the portraits on the wall exactly so they jsut made them all black and while and now its the Black and White church. We didn't see it but it sounds cool. Saw the opera house, largest in Germany, in front of which is a square with a statue to that first Bavarian king, learned it was his son Ludwig who in 1819 gave his wife Theresa a field for her wedding and what to do with a field? They threw a party and invited all of munich (theresaviese) and had lots of wine and games and fun, so much that the next year they did it again and after the first seven years they said why import all this Italian wine we should just be using our own beer, so they brewed higher alcohol content beer to match the wine so everyone still got drunk and that's how Oktoberfest was born. Went down the street where Hitler's Munich beer hall putsch was put down and stood on the very spot where his bodyguardtook 11 rounds of bullets for him (he didn't even die) and saved his life. Apparently in the melee 15 nazis died and 4 policemen and 1 waiter, and during the Nazi regime there was a plaque up there across from the main government building saying all 20 were Nazis and the 4 policemen were shot in the back tring to join the opposing ranks and same with the waiter..the plaque was taken down but it also had two wreaths up that were changed daily and had guards in front to make sure passersby said the nazi salute in passing and lots just went down a side street to avoid this (though of course plainclothespolicemen were there too) and now there's a golden stripe in the bricks on the path as a small memorial to the silent resistance that walked down that street. Walked up to the statue area with two big lions where Hitler gave lots of speeches, etc etc...lots of history here. Rubbed the crests of three of the four lions flanking the entrances to the m ain state buildings for life, love, and luck in business (you can't touch all four or you'll get no luck at all). Next part of the day = Dachau. Dachau is really not out of the city, there were apartment buildings set up literally within fifty feet of the complex (ps- one of our maps had easy german sayings which aren't easy at all because there's not phonetic pronounciation, but we'll just spice it up and add these: ich habe nur meine Lederhosen vergessen (I just forgot my leather pants is the translation)...and mein Freund ist besoffen (my friend is drunk) :) excellent saying. Ich mag dich! (I like you) Logisch! (sure) okay great. Continuing. Dachau. So it started snowing at the end and got freezing and the whole foresty area around partrs of it rustled and you defnitely got the feel it was not a fun place to be at night. Or in the daytime but it was sincerely creepy t night. There was a ton of information to learn and a documentary about the camp and the Nazis in general and you walked through the main command center for the SS and there were 2 of the 34 reconstructed barracks in the back there were memorials to all the different groups taht were in the camp- jews and catholics and Russian orthodox and carmalite and protestant...and the crematorium and one of 3 still remaining gas chambers from the third reich, though the one here was never officially put into use and nobody knows why. Dachau was the "model" camp, in use for all 12 years of the third reich, had 200,000 people pass through and 34,000 deaths had 37 subsidary camps all around Munich (which aren't there anymore but imagine there are people living on that earth right now) and the first couple years it really was just a hard work camp but no uniforms and people ate "enough" albeit not nutritional, it changed in 1937-38 with an influx of jews and they built new barracks and new campgrounds and rules got stricter and stricter, but the whole camp was evacuated in 39-40 for ss training because all the ss had to come here to get trained before being sent to other camps. It was known to the community that a camp was here advertised for rehabilitation and reeducation, people coul dhave packages sent etc etc but life was hard all around, standard concentration camp conditions, the crematorium at the end didn't have enough coal to run so they built two mass graves and the stench the people around could see so they then knew how bad conditions at the camp were, there were small resistance groups around that tried to help and the last day before the allies came (americans liberated the camp) they tried to stage a coup on the town hall with escaped camp mates but since a lot of the town was SS friendly and a lot of ss lived in munich, it being home of naziism and all, it was bloodily put down. There were death marches sent out from dachau in the final months, dachau had a lot of medical experiments done at it, not under mengele but others- low air pressure, freezing temperatures, sulfanide pus bulbs and blood infections injected in and people had to take a pill every five minutes to see what it would do...always jews subjected to those conditions, lots of dissections of sick and dead prisoners..there was a brothel here where women from ravensbruck were made to be prostitutes in 43 and 44 for the prisoners to help their work morale, because the Nazis needed the munitions coming form this camp, the camp had a medicinal herb garden, rabbit hutches, an infirmary which really did nothing, it had the capo system, it shot russian prisoners of war (those statistics on how many deaths were not kept) its door said arbeit mach frei in smaller iron letters, the trains came right in and deposited the dead and dying, the camp was mainly for men no women and children and lots of transport from here to other camps, especially in the east were common, the camp had barbed wire fences and then a trench and more barbed wire and after the war the US army used it as a base for a long time and then it was set up as remembrance but some government functionaries still use parts of the land, it took up 1.5 square kilometers which is a lot, so we only saw the part for prisoners and all the comandant centers are still buildings for one of the Bavarian guards. Its very hard to describe the conditions and the actual facilities and do it justice, I have pictures. I was very glad I got to come and see this place and glad to see how many others, even on Christmas day there were there. Fastforward to train station, we got pretzels and glunwein and apple strudel and ate, went back to the hostel and literally chilled on our comfy beds (although there was again a lack of heat in the room) until bed, now we're up early again on a train to BERLIN!!!
Winter Break 2008- Venice
Venezia, Rome!! Day 6
Population: 280,000
Venice. On our way now. Early train again. we've seen a lot of fog in Tuscany (of which Florence was the capital) low mountains in the distance, some wooded areas, the uze. Venice was actually was favorite part of Italy, not so much for its "famous" sightseeing touristy places like St. Mark's Square, which, though big, was really not too different from other major European capitals, but for all of its more impressive yet non boastful demeanor, the winding little streets with three story ancient houses blocking your view, the little rivers and sounds of water trickling in everywhere, the random pathways that suddenly overflowed onto a nice stepping bridge and you found yourself going up and going down and getting easily lost in the streets full of shops and little street markets and bright lit colors. I was sort of sick all day so I didn't fully enjoy myself, and also after reading the guidebook I would love to go back and go to all fo the little islands because we just stayed on the main one, but apparently there's Lido island which is a beach resort and then two San something islands which one has a former insane asylum turned university and is a jungly climate and the other has temples to the gods and seems very beautiful, at least from the pictures. We didn't even take a water taxi (tourist trap!) so when I go back thats a need as well. Anyways, it was very cool we started off getting lost but seeing the old Jewish Ghetto set up in 1516 by a decree of the Italian duke ruling the area, and they've been there ever since, they expanded to two other parts of the isaldn and now I don't think many jews live there although there were a few shops selling jewish goods, a synagogue with a large exhibit for the public, and some memorials put up to the jews dead in the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the nazis didn't come until late 1943 to round up the jews in Italy and when they came a lot had escaped through the winding water routes, so there wasn't really a systematic evacuation of the ghetto, and the term ghetto applies to its classification from the middle ages. Jews were forced here and forced to be employed in some economic business which eventually led to commerce....not sure, sounds similar tot he Jewish european history trajectory learned in class. But the history of the ghetto was a peaceful one for the most part apart from the obvious fact of lack of freedom of movement. Past there we walked down some winding streets, passed tons and tons of shops and markets selling the masks for the carnival of venise not as many leather goods as Florence, some clothes and random as seen on tv merchandise like a quick cappucino maker and a fruit press, some bakeries and food shops but more so retail items, everyone had these boxed cakes panecote for Christmas, they didn't look super good but literally everyone had them there were millions of these panecote boxes everywhere. We found our way to the Rialto market of fruits and veggies as it was closing, found this square where a guy was selling hot pasta on the street and people were standing in the square drinking wine out of nice glasses..odd because it was freezing and their wine wasn't hot. Crossed the Rialto bridge, a big bridge with a nice view of hte boats attached to their wooden poles, some of which are decorated with rotating dual colored stripes like a barber's pole, also got a good view of the embankments of the grand canal, eventualy found St Mark's square and the Doge's palace, went in St Mark's it was again huge inside bery dark like a lot of churches but had mroe gold, the columns were a lot thicker and the archways where you crossed from one area to another had these bright gold tiles with giant saints arching above you kind of like angels flying because of their curved orientation, I liked it. The Doge's palace was a big rectangular structure looking right out onto the sea with the msot famous coffee shop in one of its little interior shopping ares (the Florian Cafe) very renaissance-esque with angels and cherubs flying everywhere. Speeding up this entry a tad, we walked along the water for a while but lots of fog so hard to see, and cold, eventually found a cafe and sat for a while then went back to the train station and crossed the 4th bridge, the newest bridge built last year its very spacey- futuristic and has a blue electric light on the bottom and curves up, cool though. Sat at the train station and watched "The Lives of Others" in preparation for Germany and got on a night train to Monaco (Munich in Italian- very confusing), put in a cabin with no heat, moved at 1:30 in the morning with our frostbitten toes and all to the entirely opposite end of the train to another compartment, slept in a haze until a knock on the door at 6:30 and we're in Munich. The guy took our passports for border security in Austria and Germany and gave them back at the end, a system I did not like and did not understand because we're all in the EU....these border rules are insane. Then we make it to......
Winter Break 2008- Florence
Day 5: Firenze, Italy
Population: 366,000
Made it on time, found our hostel, put our bags down, and went. Walked around the main city center, got lost, saw lots and lots of churches. All the churches here are built in a style unkonw to me. They're all faded brick, not really red more brownish orangy, and then the front facade is this huge slab of white marble, a lot of times with green or pink marbles wirled in, and the facade either is stripy white and green marble or just swirled and it ha a lot of little columns, a main lunette window in the middle, and giant giant giant doors from the middle ages. Actually, it was cool because all the buildings were of a certain style, medieval I'd call it, but the doors were massive, witht he bolts and big knockers and everything. So we saw Santa Maria Novella church, another one, and the biggest of all Duomo/Campanile. Its absolutely huge and had a huge circular building in front of it that was decorated in the same style and it had a belfry, later we saw a similar outlay and in Italian the circular complex was called a battisteo, I'm thinking it m ight be a baptistiere (french, never learned the word in English) but either way it's huge for that purpose, and I can't imagine it'd be a second church or chapel. Anyways, duomo was huge, the white marble again, more ornately decorated than the rest, and inside it was a lot barer than most churhces we've seen because they took all of Raphael and Mihcaelangelo's works and put them in museums for people to pay to go see. Around one giant churhc (oh yeah, all these churches have huge domes, I think they're actually classified as basilicas) in front of this one was a huge market San Lorenzo Street Market. It was those little white tents again, this time a lot lot lot of them, and inside a large building was a good market similar to what i saw in Hungary, not as good, but they had a lot of fresh menat, little epicerie type places with pastas, and on the second floor fruits and dried fruits. Dried fruits have thier following here, the actual fruit seleection wasn't as good as in other palces, and theres a suspicious lack of boulangeris in all of Italy we've found. You can't really just go buy bread. Sad. Anyways, we got a selection of dried fruits, they even had dried honeydews and dried pears and really every fruit you can think of, dried sugared carrots...Outside they were selling a lot of leather purses and sachels in all different colors and the mix of them together looked pretty, you could smell the leather too. Also tchotckes of course, eky chains, lots of scarves, soccer jerseys, statues of David. We kept walking and found more little markets, eventually hit Piazza della Republica, which surprisingly was not that special, then Piazza della Signoria which is the more famous one. It had a huge replica of David in it and a little mini statue park, a large converted church which is now a museum of some sort, and the marvelous raved about Uffizi gallery, florence's most important art museum. Prepaid tickets to skip the enormous previewed lines turned out to be completely unnecessary as there was absolutely no line, in fact all of Florence seemed pretty dead for a major town it was a little eerie. Uffizi was set up as two long corridors originally the collection of the grand duke Medici on the top floor of political offices (Uffizi), and his collection just expanded through the years. A lot of illuminations, then post-illumination Christ portraits (non golden), the main corridors had all these statues and portraits of famous patrons along the very top so you couldn't really see them well and the ceiling was by far the best part of the museum, they were gorgeously painted in a light motif with angels and vines and pastels. But the rest of the museum was not really special, there were Caravaggios, a few Michaelangelos and Raphaels and some other famous pre renaissance painters but I honestly did not see a lot of renaissance stuff, and there's a very famous painting of Eve with flowing locks of golden hair coming out of an oyster shell thats on all the covers of hte books there that we actually did not eve see. And the first floor had no art, they were taking down an exhibition. I will give it the fact that as it sits right on theRiver Tybe it had a grea t view. Other than that, not impressed. Leave the Uffizi, head over tot he river and the most famous bridge the Ponte Vecchio, also the oldest bridge in Florence. Built in the 1100s, destroyed, rebuilt in the 1300s, partly destroyed, rebuilt in the 1400s and its been there ever since. It has little houses on it and they used to be grocers markets and it was decreed sometime that they should be for gold sellers and jewelers so now they alls ell very fancy fancy jewelry. It's a sparkly bridge in any case. Across the bridge there were lots of cute shops, lots of cafes and bars with paninis and fresh pasta and desserts, there's this one type of cake it might be for Christmas called paneforte from Siena, it looks like chocolate cake with white nuts in it and its kind of expensive (its actually just nougat). Also for Christmas they do have these giant fruitcake like cakes in these big square boxes, they might ahve those in the US no sure they had them in France too. Anyways, across the bridge we find Palazzo Pitti, summer residence of the Medicis, not the prettiest palace but very big and outside it opens on the street but theres this huge tilted foreground that's just a raised concrete like there should be grass but its a concrete courtyard and a little strange to look at. Behind the palace there's huge gardens of Boboli which we did not see. We recross the Ponte Vecchio and walk over to Santa Croce, burial place of Michaelangelo, another giant white marble facade churh with a square in front of it, then walk up to Accademia Gallery where there's again no line and we go in to see David. The museum itself was again nothing amazing, fairly small, more illuminations, a statue room with lots of busts all in a row, a little special exhibition on musicians in the court and the instruments they invented (pianoforte) a real upright piano with the entire string operation like a chimney on top, old instruments that we don't use anymore today (hurdy-gurdy, serpent, and marine trumpet) and then there was David! David was worth it. He was huge, and Michaelangelo didn't make a cast mold he just carved into this huge block of marbe that was left abandoned at a cathdral in Florence and there's part of David that if he touched a little bit more would have easily fallen off, and David is from david and goliath, he carries a sling across his back, its a different david a more intellectual one, usually david's shown with the head of goliath at his feet but this is a david who is younger, who is looking out and not overjoyed with victory or full of pridebut a david who won rather by his intellect and wit, although of course he is very muscular as well. He really is very well done and very lifelike. You couldn't take pictures which was lame and it had a huge barrier ofglass around him because once someone chopped off three of his toes. Ouch. They were remade of plaster. Anyways, the entire tribune (like wing) was built just to house him, he was originally outside and then moved to the square outside the accademia gallery and then moved inside and there's two replicas of him around the city, one on piazza michaelangelo this big hill far out and one in piazza della signoria which we saw. Also upstaires there were these colelctions of Russian art depicting scenes from the bible, Christa nd his disciples, and it was very interesting mix of easter and western tradition. You couldn't really tell they were Russian except for the few words written on the wood carvings, theyw ere just little drawings of figurines. Onwards. Head back to the hostel for a sec and then over to the train station and we go to PISA!!!
One hour by train from Florence. Get to Pisa, take a really long bus route that took us around the tower but eventually made it to the piazza of miracles, inside the old fortified walls and to the giant Duomo of anotehr church, battisteo, and belfry, aka the leaning tower of pisa!! (tour penchant, torre penchente) it really leans! It was cool up close, its seven layers of white marble with each having these skinny columns encircling an open space, and on top there's a big bell inside the tower that you can't see. It was started in 1123, then left not finished for a hundred years for unknown reasons and restared in 1260 and finally finished int he 1300s and it was only on the third commencement of construction that the error was made in the positions of stones and it started to lean. Its been helped to stay up ever since, and now the EU is working on a reconstruction project that will be done in 2010, basically the problem is air particles get left on shielded parts of the tower and form these black crusts that erode the marble, also there's wind erosion on only one side, also water gathers up and causes erosions and rain causes unknown damages...lots of problems. But itw as really pretty and in the middle of this barren landscape with just the churcha nd it standing up tall (another enormous church) and there were a few little souvenir stands on the opposite walkway. Back to Florence, eat pizza, to the hostel, shower, bed, look up emails, etc. Now we're on to...
Winter Break 2008 - Rome
Stop 1- Roma, Italy
Population (city) - 2.7 million
Day 2/3 Rome!! We have this tiny tiny hostel with as many beds packed into it as possible so moving around's a little dificult, but they did have free breakfast that was not half bad at all, then we're out. Walk over to Piazza Republicana this big square taht was very open, nothing too special, then metro to Colosseum. Colosseum tour, learn a bunch, it's huge! Seated 50,000, was never called the colosseum by the romans it was always the amphitheatre and Colossus was this giant statue of gold of some emperor that was right in front of it (the giant background stone hub for it is still there so you can get a sense of how tall it was, 150 feet, then some king melted down the face to put his own on it, and then in the middle ages it was melted down and hte name given to the amphitheatre. It has a lot of holes in it because it was supported by metal pins and they were taken out for building materials progressively over the middle ages after it was put out of use. The platform where fights would occur wasn't there anymore so you could see under it to all the niches and tunnels and little cages in the ground where they used to keep the animals and the gladiators used to come up on these pulley system elevators. Outside there's a giant fountain that was the victor fountain, the dead had their own exit (the modern day one). It took 3 minutes to get all 50,000 people in and out, also called the vomitarium because it vomited people in and out, and everyone had wooden tickets that plebians got for free and aristocrats had to pay for, and slaves could even come and sit in the top rings, and there were 76 entrances each archway was an entrance. etc etc. There's lots of history there. It was built in the 1st century AD and actually a lot of its not there anymore, it was reconstructed with bricks, which is very sad, but still cool that a lot of it is there. oh yeah other cool thing, there are big square holes in the very top where they used to place wooden beams that jutted out at 90 degree angles to form a sort of awning or roof for the spectators. Ingenious, no? Okay good tour, then walked down to Circo Massimo, where they used to have chariot races and now it's jsut a park for runners, then had another tour of the Roman Forum, stood on Palatine Hill wher Romulus founded Rome 754 BC, saw Emperor Demission's palace on Palatine Hill (the foundation of it anyways) his private stadium, the banquet room, a lot of columns that were half destroyed or on the ground, the throne room, a foot of a giant statue with a toe that was as big as someone's leg today...again everything was decorated in marble and the marble was taken, a lot by the Vatican to build Vatican City, and now its just ruins. Well preserved ruins, but still ruins. Fast forwarding, roman forum was cool because its this valley of ruins all temples, the first ever botanical gardens and aviaires, and this one temple of Nero it's circular with a green door and red porphyria marble colums (emperor's amrble, they exhausted the vein of marble and you cant get it anymore, the Vatican has over 85% of it now..) and the locks and everything still work and they're from pre-0. Saw the only 3 of 35 arc de triomphe's that are left in Rome- Arch of Constantine, arch of Titus, and one other at the very end of the forum, also got a great view of Rome. Then walked up and Piazza Campidiglio, there were a lot of wedding couples taking pictures all around which was cute, saw the Altar of the Nation which has the tomb of the unknown soldier, this giant building with angels riding chariots on top, it had a little exhibition on the Italian civil was of 1870 (risorgimento) but it was all in Italian, on top we ate at a little cafe and also got another great view of the city. We passed up the Imperial Forum (the street leading up to Altar of the Nations) saw the big column Traiana, built for an emperor to celebrate his victories in 107-8 AD but then the statue on top was replaced by St Peter's later on. Across from that there was this semicricle construction in Italian called Mercati Trainei, it used to be the markets and its super well preserved, thenw e kept walking Via del Corso the main street, saw the Pantheon (not the Parthenon as I thought) it was a giant circular dome with the largest domed roof made of brick in the world, and that from 1st centruy AD, it had a giant hole in the middle on top, and inside it was essentially a basilica, the tomb of the second Italian king whose name beings with a U (Umbert?) was there (King 1844-1890 weird years for a second king), kept wakling to Piazza Navona which used to be where the emperors had battleship fights for entertainment. Now it's this giant plaza and it had a huge Christmas market, candy, toys, balloons, chreche figurines, performers (guys juggling fire on a uniycle, creepy old guy with can can finger puppets) found the Fontaine de Trevi and lots of little shopping areas, went up to the Spanish Steps area, these big steps leading up and at the bottom its all high class shopping and millions of people in the streets, giant Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci stores, made it to Piazza del Popolo at the top of Via del Corso for yet another small market, then turned around and went back. Got Italian cappucinos (very very good, beats the French by all means) and gelato pistachio and nutella. Also went in this cathedral of St Ignatius of Loyola that had frescoes covering the entire ceiling and saw a women's choir singing in the street which was nice, lots of squares had typical roman fontains with the obelisk that you see in Provence a lot, then at night we made friends with some guys in our hostel from UConn who were on our tour of the colosseumand we ended up playing cards until bed.
Day 4 ROME! Up early, metro to the Vatican, St Peters basilica (huge) and there were masses going on everywhere the most priests in uniform I've seen anywhere ever, and the guys giving mass were in dark pink cloaks and they'd come up from downstairs at all the random altars and have a group of people following them. It had this amazingly huge altar. Four pillard construction in the middle with vines creeping up it, and it seriously looked like ten churches combined, cherub statues as big as elephants, swiss guards in ridiculous romantic period costumes/uniforms protecting the place with staffs and berets and capes and silly boots, then walked around the huge outer wall of the city that sloped up from the base to form a wall with towers (craineaux) to the Vatican museum, no line! (this would be a trend) We walked around the entire thing waiting for the Sistine chapel and its all the way at the very very end (but there were signs saying Sistine chapel this way since the beginning) so it was a little confusing. It you stand in front of each piece there for a minute you'd be there for 15 years, I'm not sure what they consider pieces because literally every open space was taken up by paintings or statues, the ceilings were all decorated and every wall had an Italian wooden cabinet or some giant fresco. Saw the Map room, Signature Room, Egyptian Museum, jewish stars on the floor of one of the rooms in tile which was trange, lots of Raphael's and Bernini's works, the Sistine chapel of Michaelangelo, (huge for a chapel also very full of tourists also cool to see thathand picture finally although it was super high up. It's part of a series, first god making the earth, making light, water, then adam, then eve, then original sin, then three panels of noah and the flood. Back ourside, saw a Christmas market, had this one stand called pimp selling very colorful underwear (Ross I thought of your hanukkah present) then onto Caste San Angelo this castle that was originally a fortress and was restored by teh popes in the middle ages and has a lot of rooms done by Michaelangelo (our fave)and other famous painters. It was closed on Monadys, but the outside was very cool a very old brick building, round with lots of additions and another giant angel and chariot on top. Also right on the Tybe River, crossed Pont Sant Angelo with lots of statues on it and walked forever near the riverside, passed another market with free samples and honey cough drops, reached the old Jewish quarter and saw this Jewish school and lots of kids running around, ,lots of falafel stands, a little bit of memorabilia on the walls like this marlbe menoral or candelabra and jewish star in one of hte walls but not much, I also couldn't find any bakeries for just plain challah, but still an interesting vibrant area. Up to a fresh fruit market in Piazza Campi a littler square, then all the way back to the riverside quick stop for pizza and on to the Spanish Steps where I finally found the bumblbee earrings I've been wanting the entire semester! Garnet stone sin them. Excellence. After that we roamed around, climbed all the Spanish Steps, saw the Villa Medici which is now the National Academic of France, walked to the Place of 4 Fontains which is an intersection with four fountains, sat in this little park with palm trees and then went back to the hostel, passed some more giant buildings that weren't marked on the way. There's a whole little chinese area around the hostel which reminds me of ABC trading company times a million. In terms of Rome as rome, yes there are lots of vespas, yes they have good gelato everywhere, people are super nice (I mean waiters and service people, they always smile and say hi even if you're just walking by, we even had guys bow down to us to try to entice us to eat at their restaurant) and they have these little Italian crepes which look like giant fluffly donutes, lots of little snackbars, everywhere, good all around. At night got Italian pasta and more gelato (this time mint chocolate chipa dn lemon) and hung out at the hoste. Tomorrow up at 5:45 for the first train to Florence!!!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Aix Update - Christmas time!
Did you know Jesus was born in Provence?
Aix en Provence at Christmas = Santon fairs, cotton candy stands, amsuement park rides on Cours Mirabeau, gaufres and churros stands, hot wine, lots of lights, christmas wreaths and green stars above the streets, christmas cabins selling every gift you could ever want. Sister city fair, thirteendesserts fair, calissons, ble de l'esperance on the three plates, advent calendars with Mie-oh-ko candies, christmas carols in Provencal, lots of Christmas spirit......bliss.
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Paris pics- There really ARE M&Ms in the Aix TGV Vending Machines!
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How Many Metro Stop Does it Take to get to the Eiffel Tower?
Location = Paris
Population = 3.5 million ish?
Coolest place EVER! Also my future home come Fevrier.
Since we are in crunchdown mode here in Aix, with a mere 7 days left, I am going to go through this trip in little tidbits. It was very fun but I did not do that much sightseeing because I knew that I would be back soon so I preferred to just hang out with friends and go with the flow.
Recap: Thursday we leave, take our fave TGV train to Paris Gare de Lyon (not, contrary to popular belief, the train station of Lyon as the name would suggest). Get to our fancy hostel in the 4th arrondissement (Le Marais), walk around a tad, we're right on the Seine it's a great location and Le Marais is awesome, it's where the Jewish quarter is so there's all these jewish boutiques and this one street where everyone wears kepas and they have falafel windows and bakeries with bagels (unheard of in France!) and in Le Marais there's also lots of good shopping in general, and it's near the Bastille which is a great going out area with bars and such. So we stop off at a Chinese place to eat lunch, then head to Pont Neuf for a bateau-mouche ride around Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis, then head off the La Perla margarita bar for strawberry and peach margaritas and the famous made in Paris Vanilla Margarita. meet up with the group for our "Thanksgiving Dinner" at a french restaurant- 3 course meal including chocolate mousse = delicious but very un-thanksgiving like. Off to Eiffel Tower which is unfortunately closed, snap some pics, head back to hotel. Up in the morning for complementary breakfast of baguette and croissant (oh how the french love their carbs) Walk around Le Marais and see The Place des Vosges, La Bastille tour, walk along the seine and Ile St Louis then over to the Louvre for our three hour tour (we got in free because we're "art students" my specialty is apparently art renovation and conservation but others were music and archaelogy and random things. After the Louvre we went apartment hunting for next semester and saw the 15th arrondissement a little bit, tried to go to the Catacombs but of course they were closed too, back to La MIJE and then out to dinner at this creole place where Snoop Dogg has eaten which had zebra print wallpaper everywhere and lots of funny knicknacks, then out to La Bastille to an Irish pub and eventually a Scottish pub and crepes at 2 am with nutella from this vendor outside in the freezing, very freezing cold (yum). Day 3: breakfast, meet up with George and Katie from high school at Les Deux Magots a famous cafe that Sartre and De Beauvoir frequented in the 6th arrondissement (St Germain des Pres). Got cafe creme talked about Sciences po where they both go now, living in Paris, etc etc, it was SOOOO much fun to catch up with them!! Before that I'd walked around the area a little, seen a lot of haute couture shops, St Sulpice church although it's being renovated, and Les Jardins du Luxembourg where a ton of people were doing yoga and tai chi type moves in the freezing cold on a Saturday morning and some kids were having tennis lessons and there were lots of joggers. Then passed the Assemblee Nationale (which looks across the river to the Madeleine church and their facades are mirror images) and on to Musee d'Orsay for another guided tour, they had a special exhibit on Manet and Picasso (Le Petit Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe) which was cool, not to mention all the Impressionists who are housed there permanently that are some of my faves, and the Degas dancers and Caillebotte's Raboteurs de Parquet which I had forgotten was there but used to be my absolute favorite Impressionist painting. Afterwards I followed the group of boys who were obsessed with the idea of getting Pizza Hut that they'd seen the day before, so we went to Les Halles for pizza hut (a fancy one, sit down ooh la la) and had a "boy chat" which I listened to with great interest. Then we went shoe shopping for hours, literally, Carrément , who knew boys liked shopping so much? And all the boys got PSG soccer scarves and new Adidas jackets and shorts and an illegal version of Ludacris' newest CD and no one actually bought shoes, but eventually we all ended up at the auberge. After a short pitstop at Starbucks (there are a TON of them in paris, yum but expensive and they have this new drink for the holidays Cerise Griotte which is like dark cherry chocolate and its amazing. Also danny tried a white m ocha and fell in love (thats why you try new things my friend ) so we have a new proud starbucks convert. Back at the auberge, rest up a little, steal some bread and flan from the caf, get ready to go out and head off to the Eiffel Tower, but since I didn't have adeuate time to look at the Paris map before we hopped on the metro we took a realy roundabout way and we almsot didn't make it up, but no worries we did, and it was super cool at night lit up blue and the white lights sparkle and go off on the hour and it look slike its shimmering. Since France is president of the EU now the tower has a ring of twelve golden stars on either side for six months. At the top we took lots of pictures, saw the city lit up, and Danny proposed to me (and i said yes!) it was an excellent joke and people even believed us, and more importantly its a great story. We then raced down the tower on the stairs and saw it lighting up right at 11, from there we walked to the Champs Elysees whcih was also lit up the trees had lots of string lights and teardrop lights that blinked on and off and the Arc de Triomphe was standing tall with a giant French flag and giant flag of the EU in the middle. We ate at this Italian place on the Chanmps Elysees second floor looking out and it started snowing and it was awesome, then rentréed back to MIJE for some sleep. Last day up, walk around but its Sunday so everything's closed, saw St Eustache jsut from the outside, met up at Sainte Chappelle for a guided tour and then walked over to Notre Dame and we got to climb the towers!!! That might have been my favorite part of the trip because I've never climbed the towers but I felt like quasimodo we saw the big bell ( Le Boudron, it weighs 16 tons!) and it was the greatest view of Paris ever, right at the heart. And it was also super super super cold we were essentially outside for three hours and I was not a happy camper, but afterwards we went in Notre dame at high mass and saw them finishing up and heard chants which was a very , mm, magical almost experience, magical not being the right word. They had a creche set up inside that was like a multimedia production with lights lighting up certain parts and telling the Christmas story. Then we walked back to Le Marais for falafels and challah (we got some challah converts too and some challah virgins who found love at first bite- I'm so proud) and then we took the train back. I tried to continue the Bueno bar tradition on the train but everyone was tired so it wasn't as good as on the other trip, but I still have faith in Bueno. Back in Aix, first thing we did = Pizza Capri. Delish. Then sat down for some major homework time and haven't looked up since. PARIS JE T'AIME!!
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