Oct
16
Last weekend in Barcelona was so fun because we had a huge group there! Kara’s best friend from home is studying abroad there so we spent the weekend with her and her 4 roommates who also had several guests so it was a packed house!
Kara and I left Thursday night and got into Barcelona around 11:30pm. We stayed up chatting and getting to know her roomies then went to bed so that we could wake up and see most of the city the next morning. When we got up we first headed to the main square of town where the main shops and road are. We walked along looking at crazy street performers, tents selling cute little bunnies, chicks, and ducks, and then stopping at the coolest food market I’ve ever seen. It had all sorts of exotic fruits, veggies, baked goods from around the world, fresh seafood, and lots of other great stuff. We walked around the whole thing sampling different kinds of fruits and exploring all of the different stands.
Next we walked to the gothic district where there were a lot of artists tents set up along the road and I decided to buy a piece from one of them that was really interesting and reminded me of Barcelona. It was a picture, framed in a wide frame of a Gaudi building with the windows cut and pushed back to make it look 3D, it’s a little hard to explain, but I’d never seen anything like it so I really wanted one!
Next we wandered and saw some local sites before stopping at a delicious tapas restaurant where we ate friend camembert, chicken, mushrooms, mussels, and the most amazing lemon sorbet with sage. We also obviously had to try our first Spanish sangria which was also very good. At this point I was very content with my trip to Barcelona and was surprised by the food because everyone always says that Spanish food isn’t very good!
After lunch we headed to the Picasso museum, which was interesting, but I’m not too into modern art so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have something else. But the fact that the museum was opened within his lifetime and he got to see it was pretty cool to me.
Next we went to one of the coolest museums I’ve ever seen! I’m not sure of the name but it was all about manufacturing textiles and all of the exhibits were mind-blowing! It only cost us 3 euro to get in and they gave us the fanciest digital guides I’ve ever seen which explained each piece and how it was made. They had so many things I never would have even thought possible! There was a chair and lamp constructed from some sort of digital pen that draws in thin air and is transcribed into a 3D printer. There were also little balls that showed the different kinds of sounds that music makes in 3D form, shoes that were scanned from peoples feet to fit them perfectly, 3D ultrasounds, and so many other cool things! I was in awe.
At this point we met up with Jacqueline’s roommate Alicia and went to get a delicious mojito and then I found a store that sold Dr. Pepper! You can imagine my excitement so I obviously had to buy 3 of them.
After my great find we walked down the port down to the beach and watched some surfers for awhile. It was a little cloudy and cold to go in the water, but it was fun to see the beach since we’re landlocked in Arezzo. Then we got some chinese food and headed back to prepare for the evening because the night doesn’t start till 12 or 1am in Barcelona.
Going out in Barcelona was so fun but there is no way I could live there! People stay out till 6 or 7 in the morning and then sleep till 2 or 3 in the afternoon. It was not my lifestyle but was fun to experience once!
Needless to say we got a late start the next day. We headed over to Park Guell where Gaudi did all of the construction and looks out over all of Barcelona. It was really pretty and quite a hike to the top. There were all sorts of artists and musicians playing and there was this one instrument that I’m not sure the name but looked like a big turtle shell and I made the most gorgeous sounds!
After this we got a little lost and just wandered the city for about an hour in the general direction of Jacqueline’s apartment till we found the antique district with lots of cute shops and places to eat. Again I found Dr Pepper AND nerds! Another great find, then we looked through the shops and went to eat at a Lebanese restaurant. The place had great tea and delicious food so again I was very happy with it even though this wasn’t technically Spanish food.
That evening we went back to the Gothic district where all of the locals go and danced at a local club called Magic where all they played was literally music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s in America! So funny, we had a great time dancing around to music that they would never play today in the States.
On our last day we went down the fancy shopping area and looked at the different buildings, then we went to the Barcelona cathedral and the main street but this time it was really empty because it was a holiday so it was weird to see it that way! Eventually after walking half the city we found our other friends and ate some more delicious tapas (best fried artichokes I’ve ever had!) then we got some sweets and Kara found Horchata (some non-alcoholic dessert drink that she really wanted to get ever since she heard we were going to Spain) then we went to the biggest American pub I have ever seen and I legitimately felt like I was back in Norman because every single person there was American (probably around 2-300) and they were playing all of the football games on huge screens around the different levels of the bar with people singing karaoke on the first floor. It was really fun to feel at home again, but Kara and I had to be on a 5:45 bus to the airport so we headed back to get a little bit of sleep before we left!
Barcelona was so fun but it also made me appreciate my small town of Arezzo where things aren’t so big and crazy and cheaper also!
Oct
3
So Oktoberfest was easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever been to in my whole life!
It started Thursday night when Kara, Kate and I had to take the train to Pisa and stay the night there to catch our 7:30am flight to Memmingen, which is 2 hours by train away from Munich. Since you can only carry on one bag, it’s a bit difficult to fit a lot of things, so I went ahead and wore my dirndl (traditional dress) on the plane and basically never took it off the whole weekend! The flight from Pisa to Memmingen was just one hour and it was our first experience with RyanAir. We were a bit nervous because the flights are so cheap that we weren’t sure what to expect. But it turned out to be a great experience which I am happy to do again when I travel to all of the rest of my destinations!
When we arrived in Memmingen we found a taxi to the train station and made friends with 2 other American travelers (the plane was all American students studying abroad!). We had 30 minutes till our train so we all got sandwiches and our first beer of the weekend at 9AM! Not exactly my idea of a delicious breakfast, but for this weekend it had to be done!
Bavaria has a pass where it’s only 28 Euro all day to travel by any means for 2-5 people, so my friends and I split it with these other 2 girls and it made it very inexpensive to get into Munich! One of the best parts was getting on the train and at every stop seeing all of the locals get on in their lederhosen and dirndls! There was hardly anywhere to sit, so one group of guys just camped out in the passageways placing their cartons of beer between the doors so they could still chat with each other, I found that rather funny and clever!
When we got to Munich we walked to our hotel, noticing the difference in the air there and in Italy, it just seemed fresher and with less cigarette smoke, which we appreciated. Then we checked in, did a quick refresher and headed out to the city center to show Kara and Kate around before we went to Oktoberfest since they had never been there before. We went to the Glockenspiel, Hoffbrauhaus, Cathedral, and wandered around the streets for several hours getting fruit and snacks along the way.
When we were too tired to keep going we took a taxi back to the hotel and took showers to get ready for our night at Oktoberfest. Most people will tell you that you can’t get into any of the tents without reservations past midday, but that proved to not be true for us!
We followed the crowd, in the rain, to the festivities and had a bratwurst at one of the stands. We asked a group of guys around us to take our picture and we started laughing when after they took our picture they came back a few seconds later with little roses for us, that was sweet but also awkward while we were trying to eat a very unattractive food!
Next we set our sights on getting into one of the tents and decided on a side entrance to one of the bigger tents that had some servers on break outside. We went and chatted them up, saying we were from Texas and we were only there for the weekend. After a minute or two one of them went and talked to the guards, got us in, brought us beers and put us at a table with a bunch of his friends! It could not have worked out more perfectly! We had a lot of fun standing on the benches watching all of the local Germans do their beer chants and what not. We also bought on of the biggest pretzels I’ve ever seen and got to know the people around us. Kara met some Americans sitting behind us, one of which worked for some company that has to do with her major and talked to her about jobs for a long time which was awesome! Kate and I talked to our new German friends about Oktoberfest and all sorts of funny things.
When we left Kara somehow snuck out her beer mug, only to have it taken away when we tried to find a cab though, so that was her goal for the next day!
By the time the tents closed (around 11pm) we were all so exhausted that all we wanted to do was sleep. We could never find a cab so we just walked back to the hotel and fell asleep with the intent of waking up very early to get back into a tent the next day.
Well… that did not happen considering how tired we were, so we didn’t wake up till around 9:30, get ready, go and eat one of the most delicious pastries I’ve ever had in my life! They pulled out hot chocolate croissants when Kara went to go get sugar for her coffee and she literally stopped dead in her tracks saying…. are those hot?…. can I have one? almost stuttering from her excitement. It was the best one I’ve ever had by far and was a great start to our day even though it was starting later than we would have liked.
Next Kara went to meet her friend at the Hoffbrauhaus tent while Kate and I went to buy our train tickets back to Memmingen for that night because I booked a hotel there that night so that we could wake up and not have to worry about getting back to the airport. Then we went to meet Kara with her friend Jacqueline who we are going to stay with in Barcelona next weekend! We tried to get into the Hoffbrauhaus with her, but they were pulling people out and arresting them during that time so we didn’t think that it was probably our best option for the day.
So we stopped for some coffee, and decided to look for a small tent. There was a little (in comparison to the others) gingerbread house behind us so we went up to the reserved entrance and asked where to get in, he told us there was no beer in there and we said that was ok, and so he just went ahead and let us in! Easy peasy!
Inside was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, tons of little sweets hanging from the ceilings and a band was playing on top of the bar with people standing in their seats dancing around. They even had little crowns for everyone to wear. We walked around, met a few people, had a drink danced to the band and then decided it was time to move back to a more traditional beer tent.
Across the street was Lauenbrau so we went to one of the guards there and chatted him up, asking where the entrance was, what to do if we didn’t have reservations, and when we could tell he was thinking about letting us in, we pulled out one of Kate’s CD’s and told him that it was her and shes very famous in the states and she would sign it for him if he let us in. He didn’t believe us at first so he made Kate sing for him, then he said Ok go on in! So thanks to Kate we got into our third tent of the weekend easily!
We walked around to find a table (you don’t get served unless you’re at a table) and being three girls it’s pretty easy to find a table with a few spaces and guys that are willing to let you stand there to get a beer. So we stood with one group for a little bit, got our beers chatted with them about where they were from, and then moved on. We met some Americans from Alabama, some German girls who were sweet and let us sit and eat a little bit with them, then we bought another pretzel, met some italians, more germans, more americans, more germans, stood on the benches and participated in the songs as much as we could (some were even american!) then it was getting late enough that we needed to catch our train back to Memmingen. We said bye to all of our new friends and then Kara was able to smuggle out her mug like she had wanted from the beginning
We got on our train to Memmingen, fell asleep, woke up, found a taxi that took us to the quaintest little hotel! That was when we were sad we didn’t have an extra day to explore the little town of Memmingen before heading back to Pisa, something for the future maybe!
The next morning we got to the airport, found our friends we made from the first plane ride, exchanged stories and went home. It felt good to come back to Arezzo and it really does feel like home now!
Oct
2
So my art history class in Arezzo is basically the coolest class I’ve ever taken! Each Thursday we travel to sights to learn about Italian Decorative Complexes and a new part was just added where we learn about the actual process of making the art itself so we can appreciate it even more.
Two weeks ago we headed out to Assisi in Umbria to see San Francesco and all of its greatness. We hoped on a train early in the morning then took a bus up to the top of the hill where the basilica sits and we grabbed a light lunch before Kirk took us through telling us about Cimabue’s attempt at perspective with the example literally right in front of you! So amazing. Then we went up to the second floor where there were all of the freezes of the life of San Francesco and learned that supposedly when the earthquake struck 3 people ran to the altar and 1 to the door, guess which ones lived?
After our tour the rest of the class wanted to go home but 6 of us wanted to stay and explore so we walked around up the hill towards the huge fortress, getting gelato along the way obviously! I did not have my hiking gear on, but when we made it to the top and had the huge view it made everything so worth it. I cant even begin to describe the colors and the views from the tops of the hills in Italy but it is one of those experiences where you just can’t speak and have to pause to really remember that I live here in one of the most beautiful places in the world!
This past week we were able to learn about the creative process of making sculptures and frescoes by experiencing it for ourselves. First we went to the studio of a very famous tuscan sculptor who still uses the traditional bronze making process and uses granite for his work. He was a total nut but so fun to watch and learn from. Listening to his inspiration for his pieces and realizing the work that goes into them.
Our next stop was at an agricultural tourism site where they had vineyards, farms, and a hotel with an amazing pool! We had a lecture on frescoes then were able to paint them ourselves. Before I never realized how much work went into them till I was trying to lay the background sand and cementish mixture before i could even pick up a paintbrush! I now realize how all of the great artists felt and how much time and dedication these things take. Needless to say I do not have the attention span for it! But I was able to finish mine and it turned out fairly decent, I’ll post more pics later!
We were supposed to have a “light lunch” which turned into a 4 course meal consisting of appetizers, pasta, chicken, and apple pie with wine made from their vineyard. Needless to say it was a good school day and I learned more from experience than I ever would have just sitting in a classroom at ou!
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