Geneva

Here's the last installment of my epic reading week trip!

Geneva wasn't nearly as exciting as Rome, Venice, or Lucerne, but you can't ask for everything in one trip! We ran into a few snags, so I've decided that I have to go back at some point to really see Geneva.

We were able to stay there for about one day. After arriving in Geneva, we found our hostel (which was right by a Ferrari dealership!), walked around a bit, and grabbed lunch at a Pizza Kebab place (we decided to eat cheaply for lunch so we could splurge on dinner and have fondue). I'm really going to miss good kebabs when I get home, they're great here! Haider and Kevin ordered a pizza one, so the shop basically just used a pizza instead of a tortilla to wrap the kebab. Yum!

After lunch, we decided to get our train tickets to Paris (our flight back to London was cheapest from Paris), but ran into a few problems. We ended up having to buy expensive tickets through Lyon because all of the Paris ones were booked. But once everything was all sorted out, we headed out to do more sightseeing.

First on the list: the U.N. building. we took a bus there, but found that a group from Sri Lanka was holding a protest there ("Those cheeky Tamils!" Haider said while we waited on the bus).


We all decided not to get off the bus at that stop because they were holding up signs with Obama's face on them (as well as other leaders of G8 nations) and we knew it wouldn't be the safest thing to do. I was pretty sad that I didn't get to take a tour of the U.N. building (or even see it -- there were too many people), but that's one more reason to go back!

We were able to make it to CERN, though (CERN is a huge international experiment... a superconductor. It's basically trying to discover what electrons are made out of by running two of them into each other.


The visitor's center had a cool museum inside with hands on activities. I think they tried to explain what was going on, but I understood very little of it. It definitely wasn't made for children (which is probably the only way I would have understood all the displays).


Look, a smiley face! When I don't understand things, I make stuff up.

We spent a few hours poking around the museum. The engineers in our group (Vanessa and Haider) got a lot out of it, but the rest of us liked it too. =)

By the time we got back to the center of town it was dinner time, so we grudgingly ate at McDonald's (those train tickets were very expensive). But the fun thing about eating at foreign US fast food chains is that they have different fun menus! My favorite item on it -- "Le M," a fancy schmancy burger. I ordered a Big Mac though. You can't beat the classic.

Our evening was spent walking around (I found a Swiss Bank!). We stopped at a crepe shop and then decided to walk around the lake to see the Jet D'eau. It was turned off though, so we just admired the view.



Here I am by the lake with Geneva behind me. =)

So Geneva wasn't as exciting as the other places we went, but I still really enjoyed it. I got to put my French to good use, which was probably the best part. It was actually really rewarding to use French... I was able to get directions and correctly follow them (gasp!) and made friends with a French couple on a train (they thought I was Australian). I was pleased that I was able to carry on a pretty good conversation with them. =) I even read a few articles in French in their local newspaper... some were just light reading, but a few were about economics. I was a little surprised that I could grasp them, but mostly proud.

So that's it! The next morning we hopped a train to Lyon, continued on to Paris, and then grabbed a flight back to London!

Lucerne -- Life is Great!!

And now onto Lucerne! When we all arrived in there, it was snowing! Trying to get to the hostel from the train station was an interesting experience (my suitcase handle had broken), but we finally made it to the hostel. There was a big plaster cow downstairs by the check-in desk. We met up with Kevin's friend Katie and checked into our room.


Swiss money is officially the coolest looking money in the world. I'm completely convinced that this is why people bank there (never mind anonymity -- yay pretty colors!!).

The hostel staff was very nice. They told us about Lucerne's Carnival (which we had happened to stumble upon), and what we should do in town. The hostel had internet access, which was nice, but the computers in Switzerland mix up the y and z on the keyboard! Very confusing... I'm pretty sure I signed an email or two "Hilarz," haha.

In the morning, we all had breakfast in their huge dining room. I discovered strawberry yogurt and granola, which became my staple breakfast for the duration of my time there... yum! That morning, we went back to the train station and found a walking tour of the city to join. It was a great experience -- we saw a bunch of famous parts of the city and the tour guide gave us even more good advice for the festivities of the Carnival (called Fasnacht).


This is Chapel Bridge, one of the most famous landmarks of Lucerne.


In front of Lake Lucerne. You can see the Hof Church (with the twin spires) in the background.


Inside the Jesuit Church. The interior is a mix of Baroque and Rococo (the design itself is Baroque and the coloring is Rococo), according to our tour guide (and Cogsworth?).

After our tour, we stopped by a small restaurant for lunch and (most importantly) hot chocolate. lunch was amazing - I tried barley soup for the first time and it was amazing! Hot chocolate in Switzerland is the best I've ever had. Later, I found the brand they used online (Coatina), so I'm really tempted to buy some as a treat for when I get home.

Once we had finished lunch, we all wandered around the town, spending a lot of time by Lake Lucerne admiring the view making friends with the swans. =) Afterwards, we headed to the Lion Monument, which was really moving.


It was created to commemorate the Swiss Guards who died in the French Revolution.


While we were admiring the statue and trying to translate a carving in the mountain in French, a guy holding a huge mask opened a gate off to the side of the monument. Naturally, we were intrigued, and Haider made conversation with him. It turns out he was on his way to drop off the mask at a secret bunker in the side of the mountain. He happened to be a trombone player in one of the bands performing at the Carnival and invited us to see his group's practice room inside the bunker! Of course we all agreed and went inside. It was really exciting! They had it done up with different halloween decorations and pictures of the group from previous years in the festival. The group was called "Noteheurer," which he told us translated roughly to "Bum Note... because we're not very good," haha.

We thanked the man for letting us wander around the bunker and promised to try to find him in the Carnival the next day. After that fun detour, we went back to a place the tourguide had pointed out during our tour and saw a really interesting 360 degree painting called "Dancing with Death." It was supposed to be comforting to people because it depicted that everyone had to face death, no matter your social status.

After that, we all dropped off Emily at the train station (she had to go back to London to take a midterm - what poor luck), grabbed dinner, and went back to the hostel. The next day was going to be very long, so we decided we needed the most sleep as we could get.


Back at the train station, we were less weirded out by the paper mache pigs and even more excited for the Carnival starting the next morning. We even found the pig that Noteheurer submitted -- it's the one in the middle that looks like a zebra.

The next morning was the beginning of Fasnacht -- "Dirty Thursday." The festivities officially begin at 5am at Fritschi Fountain, where a cannon is shot and the mayor throws oranges to the thousands of people packed in the square, but we didn't get up that early. Instead, we got into the city at around 8am and walked around looking at all the fun costumes and listening to bands.


There were a lot of impromptu parades going on. This band was walking down the main road right by Chapel Bridge. Traditionally, Fasnacht is held to "scare away the winter demons," which explains the scary masks (well, some were scarier than others... most were just absurd).


This monkey got really friendly... this was taken right after he pretended to pick stuff out of my hair, hahaha.


Vanessa and I in front of one of the street bands. We all danced to a bunch of the songs the bands were playing. On another note, notice that the director has a battleaxe. I'm glad Bartner doesn't have one, haha.


How very Swiss! =)


Here's another street band. They were everywhere! We'd be wandering around the streets and all of a sudden we'd hear another band playing, so we'd head to another square to check it out. It was so much fun!

Some other random and exciting things that happened at the Carnival: meeting a man dressed like an Indian who offered us "coffee" (a very strong hot alcoholic beverage of some sort) from his teepee (turned bar), attending a Fidel Castro rally (complete with Cuba flags and a piped speech mimed by a guy in a Castro paper mache mask), random bars set up along the streets playing music (my personal favorite, "Live is Life," which we thought said "Life is Great" -- it became our theme song for the rest of the trip), seeing men dressed as Snow White on 3 separate occasions, bunnies pushing airplanes giving carrots to Vanessa, and feeling out of place because we were the only ones not in costume.

At about 10, we left the city to take a train up to Engelberg to go skiing. Yes, that's right -- I skied the Alps (!!!). It was absolutely breathtaking.


Action shot! Vanessa and I were the only ones who had skied before, so we helped teach the others. It was a lot of fun!


On my way up the run. We were able to ski for a good 4 hours or so before we all got tired and took a gondola to the top of the mountain to see the view and get some hot chocolate.


Isn't that an incredible view? It looks like we're photoshopped in, but I promise we're not. ;)


Kevin and I by the lodge where we got DELICIOUS hot chocolate!


This is the current background on my computer... how pretty!


I was a little excited, what can I say? But I definitely love this "I'm king of the world!" picture.

When we returned our ski gear, we asked the woman helping us for advice on where to eat dinner. She told us that there was a great little restaurant in Engelberg called "chuchchsleishchcheugh..." or at least that's what it sounded like (imagine someone clearing their throat and then expecting you to recognize that sound as an actual word). The real name was Chuchichäschtli. Not much better, right? Anyway, the food was fantastic -- Kevin and I shared barley soup and a delicious stew while some of our friends ordered Rösti (great traditional Swiss food). I guess the cheese on that was especially delicious because Kevin asked the waitress what kind of cheese it was after trying a bite. Her response -- an incredulous look and "um... from the Alps?" as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, hahaha.

When we got back to town after dinner, we stopped by the Carnival again to see what was going on. We managed to find "Batman's" group, Noteheurer (they were just as terrible as he had promised, haha). We wandered around again listening to bands and going back to the teepee to get more "coffee" before heading back to the hostel to crash.

The coolest part about Switzerland is its great public services. The next morning at 7am when we went into town to take our train to Geneva, all of the streets which had had an inch of confetti covering the ground were completely clean! I officially love Switzerland. We all had an AMAZING time in Lucerne and wish we could have extended our stay!

Carnevale di Venezia

Another installation of my reading week travel blog!

After our train to Venice, Caitlin and I met up with our other friends from Queen Mary. We found our way to our hostel (which was AMAZING -- double rooms with private bathrooms, a huge kitchen, plus it was very clean and cheap to boot!). After settling in, we grabbed a quick dinner at a nearby cafe. It had a billiards table and a few guys brought their dogs with them while they played a game. I've noticed that the US and the UK aren't dog friendly when compared to the continent. People bring their dogs in small restaurants, on the metro, and in shops.

After dinner we headed back to the Grand Canal, got gelato, looked at Carnevale window displays and walked around the canals.


Some of the simpler masks we found. We planned to come to Venice during their famous Carnevale and it ended up being even better than we had hoped!

It was nice to just wander around that night, espeically after tearing through Rome for 2 days. Venice is a great place to just walk around... I think you can't really experience it unless you let yourself get lost in the canal system and find new shops, homes, and buildings you never expected.

We found a small-ish street party in a big square and after hanging out for a bit, decided to head back to the hostel. The next morning we woke up early to buy food from a local grocery store, made breakfast and packed a lunch (don't forget -- we're all broke college students, despite the international travel), and headed back to the center of town.

On a side note, the Venetian does a pretty good job imitating parts of Venice. Vanessa and I kept having trouble believing that it was real and we weren't on the strip. ;)

The first thing on our list of things to do in Venice: a gondola ride!! It was so much fun! I now have a lot of respect for the gondoliers... the boats are tough to maneuver, but we never hit anything - even in the tiniest canals. It was a beautiful day and all of us had a ton of fun. The gondola ride was such an incredible way to start off an even more incredible day.


A nice group picture on the gondola ride (minus Haider, who graciously took the photo). I resisted the urge to ask the gondolier to sing to us, haha. He told us cool historical things about Venice and answered our random questions about the canals instead.

Right after we finished our gondola ride, something caught Kevin and my eye -- chocolate. A little shop was selling chunks of chocolate so Kevin bought one and I bought some champagne (my favorite kind from home) and we shared for the rest of the day while we walked around Venice. Classy, I know. =)


One of my favorite pictures from Venice... how pretty! I had already thought the little bridge was beautiful with the hanging flowers and then a gondola appeared, making it that much better.

My friends and I decided (unanimously) that the most important thing we needed to do while in Venice was for each of us to buy a mask and wear it the entire day. So while we were walking toward St. Mark's Square, we stopped by a bunch of mask shops to find ones we liked. Some of the masks were simply incredible. None of us got full masks, but the more ornate ones were absolutely beautiful. They were so detailed! We walked into a few mask shops that were very expensive just to take a look at them. It was too bad that most shops didn't allow pictures (although I snuck a few!).

After all of us had found masks, we made our way to St. Mark's Square, pausing when we passed an interesting place or a gelato shop (by the end of the trip, we could tell when Emily had found a gelato shop because we'd hear the bells on her mask as she skipped off to see if they served the Nutella flavored kind, haha!). My friend Haider and I began playing a game where we would stare at people menacingly from under our masks just to make them uncomfortable. It was so much fun!! We got a bunch of really great reactions, haha. =)


This is the mask I got. It was honestly one of the first ones I found when I actually started looking. I fell in love, but decided to keep looking for a while, just in case. Obviously I ran back for it. If you look really closely, you can see music notes on it. How perfect!

When we got to St. Mark's Square, there were thousands of people there for Carnevale. The entire square was packed with people there to see all the great costumes and masks. I had seen some pictures of Carnevale, but seeing the intricate costuming in person was incredible. Regular people spent months working on their costumes for Carnevale. You could barely tell that some of them were homemade. Most looked professionally done -- delicate, beautiful, and one-of-a-kind.



Posing with a masked couple. There were so many great costumes!


One family dressed up their little boy as a gondolier and let everyone fawn over how cute he was and take tons of pictures. ADORABLE!


A family of clowns! One of the running jokes of the trip was "Il Maximus de Circo ha rubato Hilary!" which translates roughly to "The Circus Maximus has kidnapped Hilary!!" I guess that's not much of a stretch on some days, haha.


There were three raptors running around the square at one point. Their mouths even moved and they shrieked while chasing and attacking people! It was really fun to watch.


This was my favorite costume of the day. He just looks so regal! The costume was just incredible.

After looking at the costumes for a while, we went into St. Mark's Basilica. The entire ceiling was covered in mosaics and plated in gold. It was spectacular. The designs on the interior served as an inspiration to Bentley's designs in Westminster Cathedral in London (I had to write a paper on it for my Architecture class). They wouldn't allow pictures inside, but the entryway gives you a good idea of what the ceiling looked like.

Bits of the domed ceiling in the entryway... it was gorgeous! I can't even imagine how long it took to assemble that...


When we were done looking around the Basilica, we went back to the Grand Canal and watched the sunset on the Ponte di Rialto, one of the most famous bridges in Venice (this picture is of Vanessa and I right before the sun went down. We're pretty much adorable). After the sunset, we met up with one of Emily's friends from home (who was studying abroad in Venice) and had dinner by the canal.


We sprung for fine Italian wine at dinner. Yum!

There were some parties going on throughout the city at a bunch of the different Piazzas. One of the more interesting ones had professional dancers doing the tango on stage. We dropped by a few of those then caught the last buses back to the hostel.

The next morning, we had breakfast and headed up the campanile across from St. Mark's Basilica. We could see the entire city from there -- it was so pretty!

See? Beautiful. =)

That afternoon we left Venice and took a train to Lucerne, doubting that Lucerne could be as exciting as Venice had been... but we were wrong! So there's your cliff hanger. ;) Even though Venice was AMAZING, Lucerne still managed to be even more exciting (albeit in a different way).

When in Rome...

One more reason why QMUL is fantastic: Reading Week. We all have a week off to catch up on our reading (theoretically...), which meant that my friends and I got some extensive traveling under our belts. I spent 10 days in Italy and Switzerland, visiting Rome, Venice, Lucerne, and Geneva. As I get the time, I'll post about my amazing trip!

Here's my first installment: Bella Roma! Rome was, in a word, fantastic. It was kind of surreal to be there -- it's a place I've always wanted to go (especially since becoming a Trojan) and to see everything in person was an amazing experience.

On Thursday afternoon, my friend Caitlin and I flew into Rome. Our flight was a bit delayed, so the train station was rather deserted when we got there (and no one spoke English! ahhh!). We asked directions to the nearest bus stop from anyone and everyone (I ended up drawing a sketch of a bus on my hand so we could use that as a visual aid when asking for directions, haha!). After wandering around for a bit, we finally found the right bus stop and were on our way to the hostel. We stayed at Hotel Lodi, which ended up having a very intimate atmosphere and wasn't too far out of the way, especially once we knew how to navigate the buses.

On Friday we woke up early and had a delicious breakfast at the hostel. The manager of the hostel said that all of the transportation would be down that day and Caitlin and I had a minor panic attack, but luckily the strike that was going on during our stay didn't end up affecting transportation. A side note about Rome's public transportation system: the buses never announce which stop they're at (and sometimes skip stops), so it can be really confusing, especially if you don't speak the language... we may or may not have gotten lost a few times, haha.

Our first stop was the Coliseum. The inside was closed because of the strike, but it was still great to walk around it. Caitlin and I took a tour of the Coliseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Palatino. Fun fact: the holes on the outside of the Coliseum are left over from the iron poles put in there to help with its stability. The iron was looted when it became valuable. Also, some of the marble was taken to help build St. Peter's Basilica.


Apollo posed for the picture. ;)


I was a bit sad that I had not been able to go on the band trip to Italy (it was the summer before my freshman year), but this trip to Rome completely made up for it! Being at the real Coliseum was such a great experience. The tour we took was great, even though we weren't able to go inside. It made me see the Coliseum as a public works project (skip ahead if you'd rather not read my Econ tangent, haha). I had though that tickets to see matches in the Coliseum would have been fairly expensive, but the emperor built it to be accessible to all classes (slaves had the cheap seats, obviously), so it was completely free. Scheduling regular matches would decrease the likelihood of revolt among the lower classes and increase their productivity. Having a say in the fate of some of the gladiators would have been empowering to the slaves watching the matches. It got me thinking: Rome was the founder of democracy, could it have also been the father of the first public works projects? And if so, is the Coliseum the first grand-scale public good? I think I might look into that a bit. You know, in my spare time.


Go Trojans!!

The latter part of our tour took us through the Palatino, where we were able to walk through some ruins, see where Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus on Palatine Hill, and learn more about Roman history.


The view from the top of the Palatino. You can see the Wedding Cake building on the back left-hand side of the picture and a bunch of the ruins (but by all means, not all) at the bottom.


Among the ruins behind the Palatino.

After walking around the ruins for a bit and grabbing some lunch (pizza, of course), we took a bus up to Piazza del Popolo and walked back down to the Coliseum, stopping to see the fountains, monuments, and the occasional ruin. Probably one of the coolest parts of the trip was when we would get lost (a regular occurrence...) and manage to bump into another ruin site or ridiculous monument/fountain.


This is Piazza del Popolo. It had a huge Egyptian influence (as did much of Rome) because Cesar had the hots for Cleopatra and brought a bunch of Obelisks back from Egypt with her. The obelisk had some hieroglyphs and there were sphinxes along the side of the piazza by some fountains.


Trevi fountain was gorgeous. This picture doesn't do it justice at all. It was definitely my favorite (we also saw the fountains in Piazza Navona and the Triton fountain, among others). Caitlin and I got some gelato here (the first gelato stop of many... yum!!), so maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm so fond of it. ;)


Yours truly in front of the Pantheon. The inside of it was much more Christian than I had expected... I had thought there would be more statues to pagan gods, etc., and ended up finding a lot of Christian relics in there. I'm not sure which I would have appreciated more.

After the Pantheon, Caitlin and I wandered around the city until it got a bit dark, then headed down the Forum towards the Coliseum (seeing that at night was beautiful as well). We took the bus back to our hostel and immediately crashed... what a long (but amazing) day!

We spent the next day in Vatican City, braving the lines to see St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel. St. Peter's Basilica was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I must have stood in front of the Basilica for a full 10-15 seconds just gawking at the entrance alone. It was just stunning.


This was taken while standing in line for the Basilica. Yes, the line was that long. And yes, it was worth it.


The entrance to St. Peter's Basilica. Check out the marble and gilded ceiling!


Michelangelo's The Pieta. It was so moving in person!


Bernini's Baldacchio, which stands over the Pope's altar. You can see the Cathedra Petri (also designed by Bernini) behind it. Again, absolutely gorgeous.

I took a ton of pictures of the Basilica, but considering the fact that there are about 20 pictures in this post already, I'm going to refrain. Go there yourself... I really think it's something everyone should see at some point in their lives, and I'm not even Catholic!


I didn't take as many pictures in the Vatican Museum, but here's one that I liked. I saw it in the Room of the Signature (painted by Raphael). It's an angel with a lyre! =)

They didn't allow pictures in the Sistine Chapel, which I was expecting. It's something everyone's heard about and read of, but seeing it in person gave me an even greater appreciation for it. Some of the less famous scenes on the building were even more impressive than the ones everyone is familiar with.

After exploring Vatican City for most of the day, Caitlin and I went to the Wedding Chapel, which had a gorgeous view of the city from the top. We got another glimpse of the strike at the front of the monument (let's just say that we didn't dally... it went something like this, "Ooh, a rally? What's that all abo-- SWAT TEAM?! Um, let's go.").


What a beautiful view! I'm in front of the Coliseum and a bit of the ruins (from the top of the Wedding Cake).


A view of Vatican City at sunset.

That night we had a nice dinner and treated ourselves to more gelato. I asked to try a flavor I had never heard of. When I asked what it was, the guy serving me said that the name of it was Italian for "kiss" and that since he had given me some, I should give him one in return. ;) Haha! Anyway, flirting with him got me about double the amount of gelato that I paid for. Another reason why I love Italy, haha! =)

Next up, Venice... but for now -- ciao!!