Fall Break Part 1: Interlaken, Switzerland

this blog took a brief hiatus because I had midterms (easier than Oxy's, but still not fun) and then as soon as I was done we headed off for our fall break trips! we had 10 days to do whatever we wanted, and my group and I had amazing travel plans. the first part of our trip was in Interlaken, Switzerland, a small resort town in the mountains known for their outdoor activities.

we took an overnight train to Milan, then connected to Geneva and then to Interlaken. the overnight train was... interesting. you could pay extra for a bunk bed in the sleeping cars, but we just had big comfy chairs to sleep in. I took some Nyquil PM and passed out promptly.

we arrived early in the morning in Switzerland!! we were on the side closer to Germany, so German was the primary language there. in Geneva, which is on the French side, the primary language is French. pretty cool. my first impression of Switzerland was that it is absolutely beautiful. the mountains are rolling and green, and as they extend further out towards the horizon they become more jagged and snowy. the trees were changing colors and the river and lakes were the prettiest color of blue-green.

river aarn

the first day, we did all of our souvenir shopping and familiarized ourselves with the town. we did a lot of walking this trip!! my boots have some serious mileage. Interlaken's shops are all about chocolate, cuckoo clocks, Swiss army knives, and outdoor gear. for dinner, we did fondue!! cheese fondue might be the best thing ever invented. we also had some pretty good local beer, a lager with lemonade in it. 

chocolate!! 

we got coffee at one point and I asked for an iced coffee. after a lot of questions and discussion this is what the waiter brought me... not what I was expecting

the second day, we started off with a bike tour. umm, I was terrified. and these were not normal bikes, they were electric bikes, which means they essentially are motorized and give you a push when you need it. I had a hard time placing all my faith into a rickety narrow thing with an engine that seemed to move autonomously, so I went slow and trailed behind the rest of my bike group. the views we saw were beautiful though, and we biked 15 miles! not bad for a girl who can barely bike in a straight line, even though I did bike right into a wall and scrape up my right arm, 5th grade style. we saw both lakes, Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, and I wanted to jump in. they were freezing cold, but I would have if I hadn't been wearing clothes that I'd have to be in all day.

me looking significantly happier off the motorized vehicle of death

the mountains. no photo editing involved!

this picture was taken 20 minutes after the one above it. so, so beautiful!

this is lake briens. I felt at home :-)

later that day was CANYON JUMPING! I'm the first person to admit to being a homebody, but something about extreme sports really gets me going. switzerland really makes a junkie out of a person. canyon jumping is exactly what it sounds like. you stand on a small platform 255 feet in the air and free fall until a rope catches you, then you swing through the canyon. Interlaken is one of three places in the world you can do canyon jumping; the other two are Nepal and New Zealand. 

straight drop down

the length of the canyon you sail through

so ready to go

free fall. note the pigtail action happening here

casually flying over an angry river

the experience was awesome!!! I didn't feel nervous when we were heading up and kept expecting to feel the pit in my stomach develop, but it never did. I was excited, of course, but I was actually pretty calm until I was standing on the platform looking down, then I got REALLY excited. it was an easy step off the platform, then I was totally free falling. I wish I'd thought to do a silly pose for the photographer as I was falling, but honestly I was too busy feeling the feeling of free fall. it's unlike anything I'd felt before! so cool, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. 

thoroughly beat from our day of extreme sports, we called it a day. we spent our last day in Interlaken doing some more touristy things, like the St. Beatus cave tour!

the caves are all the way at the top of this mountain

as the story goes, St Beatus was a pious man who heard rumors of a dragon hiding up in a cave. he went up there, invoked the Holy Trinity, and the dragon fell into a rage and threw himself into a lake and died. convenient!

anyhow, the caves were discovered in the 19th century (18th?) and they are really spectacular. the stalagmites and stalactites were so cool, and some were over 40,000 years old. there are mirror grottos, where the water is so still it really does look like a perfect mirror, and there are rushing waterfalls and rivers that are a little scary! the view from the restaurant at the top is really pretty too. our guide was nice enough to let us take pictures. this was the only good picture I got, and it doesn't do the cave's natural beauty nearly enough justice, but there it is.

the eerily beautiful st beatus cave grottos

that was about it for Interlaken! in summary: ate a lot of cheese fondue and chocolate, drank a fair amount of Swiss beer, saw amazing caves, jumped off a cliff wall, resisted the urge to buy anything and everything with the Swiss cross on it, biked for hopefully the last time in my life.

some reflections on this part of the trip:

1. Switzerland is expensive! the currency is cool though, really sparkly silver coins. and unlike in Italy, restaurant staff are more than delighted to split up checks and give change. average food costs in Switzerland were a little mind-blowing, to be honest, even with the exchange rate. still in sticker shock.

2. Switzerland is also really beautiful. the great part is that people have figured this out, and so there are many ways of accessing and seeing all of the natural beauty. 

3. I must learn German.

4. canyon jumping was thrilling and a total rush, but I want more!! next up: sky diving. or maybe breaking the sound barrier by falling from 24 miles above the Earth's surface.

5. I want to come back one day and do the Top of Europe train ride. it's expensive but I've heard great things about it. 

part 2 and 3 on Amsterdam and London are coming soon!

my drawings

if you've ever sat next to me in a class you know I'm a compulsive doodler. I like drawing, so I decided to take a drawing class this semester. you gotta make time for your hobbies! some of my drawing experiments have gone better than others. here, for your viewing pleasure, is my work so far. 

geometric forms

the two sides of my window

a postcard... note the rocks. magnum opus.

a horse. not my best...

ladies and gentlemen: a trash can. you can't see the seal of the city of rome, sadly. done with ink.

a shed in a garden

view of the colosseum. I actually really like how this one turned out

a lamp post

a copy of a sketch by michael graves

a sleeping girl. aka I'm too lazy to draw eyes

trapped cat

the pantheon. harder than it looks to draw...

I'm currently in the midst of midterms hell. as soon as they're over I'm off to fall break! we're heading to Interlaken, Switzerland; Amsterdam/The Hague, Netherlands; then London, UK. so excited!! see y'all in two weeks!

the no iPhone life + sick, again

it's been pretty weird not having my iPhone. all things considered, it's probably lucky I lost it here and not in the States because I don't use it for anything really vital here and I can only text when I'm on wifi, which is never. still, not having a smart phone for the first time since freshman year of high school has been an experience.

the first thing I noticed right away was I didn't have an alarm clock. I realized this when I slept through my first class of the day.

the second thing I noticed was that I couldn't check the weather really easily. this bugged more than it should, probably because I'm a control freak.

I feel very out of the Twitter/Instagram loop, which is sad because previously I was totally addicted. Twitter was really my only way of checking the news and keeping up with current events, so we'll see in the coming weeks if I make the switch to using Twitter on my laptop or if not having a smart phone means living under a rock.

I also am having a difficult time keeping up with my e-mails. I have three separate accounts, so iPhone's feature of combining all my inboxes was so helpful. now I have to manually check each one. y'all can expect a much slower e-mail response time from me from now on.

finally, I'm already pretty out of the loop because I live in a separate building from all of my friends. no iPhone = no iMessage = more out of the loop than I was before. this will probably contribute to me becoming a hermit, which is my natural instinct and pretty hard to resist.

on a separate note, the inside of my throat is so swelled up I can't talk and I am pretty congested. I guess my lifestyle was bound to catch up to me eventually, but did it have to happen now?? at least it doesn't seem to be the vomit-filled illness I came down with last week, just a yucky cold.

Anirem a Barcelona!

this weekend was also up there in the top best most awesome weekends of my life, because we went to Barcelona!! Barcelona has always been a top-priority city that I've always wanted to see, and finally all of my dreams were realized. the city is as beautiful and modern and happening as they say. here's what I did over the weekend.

we arrived in the late afternoon, just as most people were in siesta time. we didn't have the time to do much sightseeing because museums were closing, but we walked around our neighborhood in search of food and stumbled across two of Gaudi's building exteriors. it's amazing that you can be walking through a neighborhood and then all of a sudden monuments of architectural genius just show up. the picture doesn't do it nearly enough justice.

Casa Battlo

we walked down Passeig de Gracia and realized pretty quickly that all the street signs were in Catalan, which is a totally different language from Spanish and actually has a lot in common with Italian and French. It's comprehensible if you've learned one or more of the Romance languages, but it's definitely different. although we wanted to explore some, we were starving and interested in trying tapas.

a bread tapas sampler. the toppings were tuna, crab, shrimp, ham, and a potato and cheese quiche. yum.

PAELLA

Then it was time for a siesta. Siesta time is from about 4 to 8, so we headed back to the hostel to take power naps and do a little research about where to go and what to do in Barcelona. the waiter at our tapas bar told us that Barceloneta was the place to be on a Friday night, so we decided we'd head there for the night. we left our hostel at around 10. 

we settled on a place to eat at around 11:30, which is SO late for dinner but totally normal for Spaniards. once again, we had tapas. the great thing about tapas is you can order 4-5 dishes and share, and that way you can try some of everything!!

fried artichokes - so salty and crispy

from the top: the best clams, literally small whole fried fish, patatas bravas

we also had this really good white wine called k-naia 2011 that was sweet and semi-dry. we finished a bottle very quickly. we finished dinner around 12:30AM and headed out to the clubs. not really sure which one to pick, we decided to go to the one that promised us free champagne inside. it was fairly horrible champagne, but they were good on their word! we danced the night away then headed home fairly late at night. 

this is a good time to discuss our hostel. we stayed at Casa Gracia, which was a really positive experience. the hostel was helpful and accommodating and the staff were so nice! our room was spacious and clean and the beds were really comfy. breakfast was provided, which was awesome. I can't speak for any of the activities and programs they put on since we didn't take part in any of them, but I liked that they created a communal space for hostel-stayers. the bathroom was clean and the shower was way nicer than the one at my room in Rome! although the hostel itself was nice, we were in a 6-person room that already had one occupant living in it. he was a pretty strange guy from Switzerland that was traveling by himself, and the weirdest thing was that he had a huge gaping wound going around the circumference of his wrist. anyway, we mostly avoided him. 

Las Ramblas street. a busy shopping and sightseeing street, but watch out for pickpocketers. FC Barca had a huge rival game against Madrid on Sunday, hence all the jerseys and spirit

I really loved Barcelona. The city was clean and modern, the streets were also clean and not full of dangerous cobblestones, their public transportation was easy, and their people were nice (and the boys so cute). I found myself wishing I'd studied abroad there, instead of Rome, but that was before my iPhone was stolen. I'm getting there, though. 

After breakfast, we headed down to Las Ramblas street to get to the Picasso museum. Las Ramblas is a main road that empties out into the main plaza, Plaza Catalunya, and the area is notorious for rampant pickpocketing. Pickpocketing and theft is a real issue in Barcelona. When I was going to Rome, I was told over and over to watch out for theft, but I've found that as long as I'm not an idiot (aka not putting my wallet down on a counter and turning around, or not sticking a passport in my back pocket on a bus) I've been just fine and I have always felt safe. Barcelona is a whole 'nother story. It's the wild wild wild west out there! I think I clutched my bag and had it zipped constantly. On Las Ramblas we did a little souvenir shopping for FC Barcelona gear and postcards, then wound our way through side streets until we found the Picasso museum. On our way there we stopped into a fantastic candy and confectionary shop that I wish I could have stayed in forever. They had really yummy fruit-flavored lollipops. 

The Picasso museum was amazing! It mostly showcased his earlier works. It was pretty cool to see that he was had total technical mastery of his subjects, which is why his later Cubism and Modernist works are still cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. I had also never seen his sculpture and pottery before. Very cool.

After the museum we headed back down Las Ramblas to the Boqueria market. The market was packed with people and had stalls selling all sorts of food! There were fresh fruit stalls, candy stalls, spices and condiments, fish stalls, and the weirdest was the creepy meats. There were lots of stalls selling tripe (umm... it looked fuzzy?) and brains and tongues and livers and whole heads of sheep and chicken with the eyeballs still in. I took pictures, but since I look at this blog a lot I didn't want to continue to torture myself with the gruesome pictures. My favorite stall was the fresh fruit stalls that sold fruit juices and fruit ice pops. 

more packed than some of the clubs we were in

so much fresh fruit!!!

I may have died and gone to heaven

strawberry ice pop. I could have eaten a hundred of these, there wasn't any sugar added and they were delicious!!!

After La Boqueria, we decided to hit one more site before siesta time. I was determined to see La Sagrada Familia, and it was not disappointing. It's massively intimidating from the outside, and as an art history student who has seen a lot of medieval and Renaissance churches it was jarring to see post-modern furnishings on the exterior of a church (like colored fruits atop spires and iguanas crawling out of sides of windows) but it was so cohesive and beautiful. I was in awe, and that was before I saw the inside. 

my first impression was that the building was melting

I got goosebumps over and over again. its beauty is beyond words.

La Sagrada Familia is the one place I know for sure I would go back to again. It's incredible. 

After the church, we were quite tired and we came back to the hostel where I almost immediately passed out. Once I came to, I showered and we headed out the door again for dinner at around 10. The first place we wanted to go to was packed and there was no way we'd be able to sit down, so we wandered around the nearby area trying to find something to eat but none of the places we saw really appealed to us. Desperate and starving, we stumbled into a tapas bar/restaurant called LOFT212, and it was one of my best dining experiences! The waitstaff were so friendly and nice and helpful, the drinks were stiff and plentiful, and the food was different and more importantly, delicious. We were one of three parties inside at that time, and we had such attentive service and way too much fun. We asked our waiter for what he thought was the best, and the following pictures are of what we were given. 

blood sausage. no actual blood involved, SO delicious.

this was one of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life. crispy fried potatoes, some sort of spicy sauce and creamy mayo. oh my gosh. I'll dream about this one for a long, long time.

sushi!!!!! the tuna was fresh and melted in my mouth. yum. 

our really charming waiter. he liked us because we told him Spanish men were better looking than Italian men! 

in short, we had a very very good dining experience. there was also a fried cheese that we tried. for drinks we had a pitcher of sangria, plus a dessert cocktail that had Bailey's in it. then as a treat for us he brought out Irish coffee which I think was about half whiskey. whew. everything was so delicious and it was 10x better because the service was so good!

after LOFT212 we headed to Espit Chupitos, which is a bar that specializes in crazy shots. there's a wall menu with over 200 kinds of shots and there's a gimmick to each one. for example, the Boy Scout shot entails roasting marshmallows over the flaming shot before you drink it. other shots involve lighting things on fire, including your fingers (!!). I did a few special ones that unfortunately can never go public. let me just say my dignity remains somewhere on the floor in Espit Chupitos. 

shots on fire at Espit Chupitos

After Espit Chupitos, we went to Razzmatazz, a big club in Barcelona. we had tickets to see Little Boots, but we never quite made it to the show because not twenty minutes inside the club my iPhone got stolen. ugh. I didn't really hold it together and called my parents really upset, so that effectively ended our night. getting back was a major adventure that I don't want to forget but also don't want to extensively describe on this very public blog, so I am going to make a series of bullet points that will make sense to only a few people. sorry to the rest of you, if you ask I'll tell you the story. 

• Mackenzie taking all my things out of my bag
• The first cab ride - tissues and 50 Euro
• The second cab ride - the driver was my new BFF and he dropped us off really, really far
• The third cab ride
• Mackenzie taking all of Maggie's things out of her bag
• "I do it all the time, literally, it's so easy you just clean it right up"

we got back at 4:30AM and slept until 9:55, when we realized checkout was at 10:00 and made a mad dash to collect our stuff and get outta there. the plane ride home was mostly comatose. 

in short, Barcelona was awesome. we ate a ton of really good food, we danced a lot, and made friends with some foreign boys. I saw some beautiful architecture, enjoyed fresh fruit and yummy candies, and got to explore the city on foot. we came, we saw, we were totally conquered by Barcelona. 

The food so far

By popular request, photos of some of my best meals here so far. Some of these are repeat pictures, I'm not sorry about it.

Prosciutto e mozzarella

Trofie e pesto

Pizze in Naples

Jewish-style fried artichoke. It looks a little questionable but is seriously delicious

Eggplant lasagna in the Jewish district

Pesto pasta with potatoes in Cinque Terre

Calamari cone in Cinque Terre

Gelato from the Frigidarium (one of the best gelato places in Rome). Tiramisu and Frigidarium's signature (Nutella cookie) flavor with a chocolate topping and a cookie

Thai food in Munich. it was so good!!

I'm  convinced this is the best pizza in the world. Dar Poeta in Trastevere, the "Top" pizza: sausage, mozzarella di bufala,  porcini mushrooms. super fast service too!

a specialty panino from Volpetti in Testaccio. my usual is prosciutto, artichoke, and pecorino cheese

spinach and cheese tortelli a ragu from Trattoria Toscana Gozzi Sergio  in Florence. the best pasta, the best ragu, the best food I've had this entire trip. it looks simple but don't be fooled! their duck meat sauce is good too.

pasta carbonara from Tavernaccia in Trastevere. right up there with best pasta. YUM. the best carbonara I've had here.

the cinque terre signature white wine. it was good wine!

limone granite. brr.

a standard cup of cappuccino. we drink usually one or two a day... at least I do

clearly the US isn't classy enough for this delicacy. I''m not a Pringles devotee (Tim's!!) but I am addicted to these. may ship a crate home.

alright, I'm hungry.

Oktoberfest in Munich

this weekend I traveled to Munich, Germany for the annual Oktoberfest festival!!! my friend Maddy was the one who suggested we go, and at first I hesitated. me, a beer festival? I'm more of a vodka cran girl (in countries where I am legal to drink, of course) but obviously I would hate myself forever if I passed up the chance to go to the biggest festival in the world, so I bought a bus ticket and Thursday night was en route to Munich.

the bus ride was an... experience. we left at around 7PM and got on a high speed train to Florence. from Florence we boarded a Greyhound-type bus and settled in for 9 hour ride through Italy, Austria, and finally into Germany. it was a tight fit but more or less pleasant, and we arrived to a chilly morning in Munich. let me tell you, the cold clean air felt so good! after a month of hot, sticky Roma, it felt good to breathe deeply again. sweater weather!!!

other thoughts on Munich: I forgot what drinking cold water felt like, or washing my hands with cold tap water. right now in Rome, nothing is ever really cold, but in Munich the water was icy and tasted fresh (I'm a water snob, I can't help it #seattlegirlproblems) which made me really happy. The city itself is also really clean and orderly. no graffiti on every doorway and wall, no cigarette butts covering sidewalks, and no jaywalking, which I am sure was a difficult adjustment for the Italians that overran Oktoberfest. the city is very modern, which makes sense considering the whole city had to be rebuilt after WWII. we also noticed right away that it was a much "more" international city than Rome, in that the food and culture and people of other countries were clearly represented all over Munich (and not just because Oktoberfest was underway). I had Thai food!!!!!! My first non-Italian meal in a month!! I personally really liked Munich and would love to return. but back to Oktoberfest.

we settled into the apartment we rented and then headed to the fairgrounds. there's a large fairgrounds that I think is used the rest of the year for carnivals, because there are rides and attractions set up that are so large I can't imagine they ever take them down. when you walk in it seems like any other fairground, until you notice the giant tents that tower over the promenade emblazoned with the logos of various beer breweries. 

the carnival area

when you walk into a tent, this is what you see. the picture below was taken from about halfway down the tent - that is how huge these tents are. the first tent we went to was the Hofbrau tent, famous for attracting a ton of American college students, Canadians, Brits, Italians, and Australians. shoutout to the Australian cutie who almost convinced me to run away to Australia to get married. hey Luke! 

inside the famous Hofbrau tent

we were here for the second weekend of festivities. I had friends and classmates go the first weekend who had a ton of fun, because it's the craziest since it kicks off the whole festival. but I also heard that it was so packed the first weekend that it was impossible to get into tents at all, and what's the point of Oktoberfest if you can't go to tents? that's absolutely where the majority of the experience is.

Friday is the best day to be at the tents, in my opinion. a lot of people are at work/school, and you can casually walk into a tent even at noon and still find a place to sit and drink without tripping on passed out Italians or cutting your feet on broken steins or sitting in a puddle of spilled beer (or worse). and most people are well rested and are in high spirits, so it was a very fun atmosphere. I didn't make it to other tents, even though I wish I'd powered through. but the lack of sleep and high level of intoxication made it pretty impossible to even stay awake, so we stumbled home and passed out.

we got up at 6 AM the next morning to trek out to the tents. right away we could tell Saturday would not be like Friday. the train stations were crammed so tightly that I couldn't breathe and the entire city was filled with lederhosen and dirndl. by 8AM the lines outside the tents were super long, and when the bell rang to signify the start of festivities the stampede was insane. people that didn't get in first were banging on the doors and hordes were waiting outside to be let in, and every few hours the security guards would toss everybody outside to allow for a rotation. craziness.

breakfast both days. hey future employers! I promise I'm drinking responsibly in the name of cultural experience!

to close out this post I am just going to bullet-point some things I want to talk about that I am too tired to write into a coherent essay. here we go.

1. stealing beer steins. This is a big thing for people at Oktoberfest! be careful because if you get caught it's a 50 Euro fine, and the security at Oktoberfest is NOT gentle. I swear they're all former KGB/mafioso/stasi/La Eme/etc. terrifying. they won't manhandle girls but they will definitely throw the guys around. it's much easier to steal a stein on Friday because the security is less tight. I noticed on Saturday my bag would get checked and patted down. apparently last year security recovered 225,000 steins that people tried to steal! my friends got away with stealing steins, but I decided not to firstly because my bag was already full and secondly because my sorority gave us steins with our letters on them and it's so big that I don't know what to do with it, much less two. the steins hold about three cans of beer each.

2. the boys. I noticed this particularly on Friday but it holds true the whole event - there were more boys than I have ever seen in my life! walking into a tent felt like walking down a runway, and I found myself wishing I'd bothered to run a brush through my hair. and they were so good looking!! the worst-looking German boy was still better looking than most American boys. can I move to Germany?

3. the food. I had the best soft pretzels of my ENTIRE LIFE and I am still craving them right now. the pretzels you buy there are 5 Euro and are the size of twice your head, so amazing. their bratwurst is really good too, normally I'm not big on sausage weenies but these were not weenie in size, flavor, or impact on my life. delicious. also apparently chicken and ox ribs are big at Oktoberfest, and although I actually ate neither the chicken did look really yummy.

4. Oktoberfest 2013 - who's in?