Florence and Munich!

Wednesday morning was my first on site class in the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The class is so interesting and my professor is really knowledgeable. The only downside is that we have to make our way on site by ourselves by 9:30. It takes about an hour and a half to get downtown that early in the morning because the bus is filled with Italians heading to work and school. So that’s my earliest class, leaving school at 8 (so rough I know). 

Wednesday night was the last of our orientation events, with a church service at Saint Ignatio for the mass of the Holy Spirit, followed by a dinner. It was fun to see everyone dressed up and the beautiful church, as if there’s a shortage of those in Rome.

Last weekend (September 14th) I went to Florence for two days and one night with my roommate Caitie and a great girl from Kansas City I met here named Lynn. We left bright and early Friday morning...very bright and early and took the fast train to Florence or in Italian, Firenze! Our train ride was about an hour and a half and we got in around eight. We felt very accomplished with this being our first time traveling by ourselves without a school-led group, and without bringing any maps or guide books. 

While walking to our hostel, we stumbled across the Duomo, which is incredible. It’s probably the prettiest building I’ve seen yet in Europe and that’s really saying something. No picture that I took of it could do it justice. We stayed at a hostel called Eurostudent Hostel, which was close to the main attractions in Florence and had students our age in it. It was the cheapest we could find and we figured that it’d just be for one night (plus Fridays and Saturday nights are free sangria night!). The place did not look like the pictures of it online, but we survived and the people in our room were very nice. One boy was from Germany, another from Romania, and a girl from Portugal. So overall, I’d say my first hostel experience was a great one. Friday and Saturday we did a lot of shopping, plus I got a lot of presents for you all back home =) Florence is known for its leather and definitely did not disappoint. My roommate and I got leather jackets, which was on my list of things that I wanted to get while here. She’s a beauty! We talked the store owner into giving them to us for 115 euros (but they were originally over 300!). It has a five year warranty, is waterproof and fireproof, and I think I’ve already broken it in by wearing it so much. Friday morning we visited Ponte Vecchio and put love locks on the bridge there. Supposedly, you put your initials of you and your loved one on the lock, lock it on the bridge, and throw the key in the River Arno to symbolize the locks never being taken off and eternal love. That was pretty cool to leave my mark on Florence! Friday afternoon we met up with two other JFRC people who were in Florence (Chris and Marymar) and spent a lazy afternoon laying in the sun in the gardens outside the Medici Palace. We ate at a great restaurant where I had a white sauce pasta with cheese and pear, which sounds really weird, but it was incredible! My mouth’s watering as I type this. We saw the original David statue while there. We took the late night train back on Saturday and got back into Rome around one in the morning. I spent the rest of the weekend catching up with people and on errands.  

Wednesday morning, my Art History class went to the Pantheon, and the Ara Pacis. The Pantheon is the most well preserved of the ancient Roman buildings, and I remember it being my favorite thing in Rome that I saw when I came with my French class after high school. I remember being stunned that you could just be walking along a street and stumble into a piazza with this incredible building full of history right in the middle. I felt that feeling again even seeing it for the second time. The Ara Pacis is an altar to peace, envisioned as a Roman goddess to celebrate peace in the empire that was established in the empire after Augustus’s victories. It is a reminder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and was originally on the outskirts of Rome, but where buried under silt until it was excavated and moved to it’s present museum. It’s location now is right outside where Caesar was buried. The altar was made of white marble, and many sacrifices took place there. 

Wednesday night was the start of calcio! (which is soccer in Italian). We’re divided into teams and everyone on campus gets really competitive and into it, my history professor’s even on my team! My team, the orange team, won our first game, which was a much sweeter victory since we played my roommate’s team. It’s tradition after every game to go out for pizza and beer with everyone. 

Friday morning, Caitie and I headed to the airport, bright and early to head to Munich for Oktoberfest! We met up with our SLU friends, Laura, Jenna, Elyse, Rima, and a new friend from JFRC, Jenna. Munich was so much more than I was expecting it to be, and Oktoberfest was a blast, plus it was great to see Rima! Seeing her definitely made me feel less homesick, and I’m excited to visit her in Madrid in November, and also live with her spring semester! We managed the public transportation system like pros, it was way easier than in Rome. I feel like I can get myself around Munich better than Rome! Which is sad considering I’ve been here almost a month. We booked our flight and our housing last May because we were told that everything is so expensive and fills up so fast. It was definitely worth it. We stayed at a place called Weis’n Camp, which was near the horse arena used for the Olympics in 1972. It was a little rough because I could already tell that I had a cold coming on before we left for Munich, and we underestimated how chilly it would get at night in Germany. We had two blankets for the four of us and the worst part is that it rained on us all night the first night so everything in our tent, which was situated on a puddle, got soaked. So none of us slept well the first night, despite our attempts to go to bed early so we would be well-rested for our early morning the next morning. We left our campsite around 6:30 so we could get a good spot in a tent. Even getting there at 8:00, we couldn’t get a table and had to stand. There are 14 different tents, each with their own decorations and beer. We went to Hofbrauhaus tent and that’s where we went the rest of the weekend because we liked it so much. It had a young crowd, and a lot of other travelers--we met a lot of people from Australia, which was surprising because they took a 24 hour plane ride just for the weekend! Beer wasn’t served until the first keg was tapped at 12. Then everyone got their drink on- Prost! (Cheers!). About 7 million liters of beer are consumed during the 16 day festival. We stayed at the tent all day Saturday, most of the time on our feet, so we crashed early back at the campsite. Even though we were all cuddling at night, I remember waking up shaking from being so cold, at least it didn’t rain the other nights. My diet for the weekend consisted of beer, and brats, and pretzels, and one trip to McDonalds. McDonalds in Europe is so much nicer than in the US. And the brats were to die for! Walking around Munich, we ran into several market and had to just stop for a couple of minutes and take in the smells. It was nice to have a break from pasta and pizza! But it was strange being in a country where I only knew about three words (hello, thanks, and goodbye), but we learned a beer cheer song that was played a couple hundred times throughout the weekend. There were also a lot of rides, as Oktoberfest is set up like a giant carnival. Oktoberfest originated in 1810 to celebrate the royal wedding of the King Ludwig of Germany and Therese. The field where Oktoberfest is named Theresienwiese (Theresa’s meadow) and it is the world’s largest fair, with about 6 million people attending it every year! Crazy to think I have been apart of that. Also while we were in Munich, we saw the Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel is a giant clock in the city center that chimes and re-enacts two stories from the 16th century every day at 11am. We also walked on the street where the Beer Hall Putsch occurred, which was a failed attempt by Hitler to seize Munich. This putsch was inspired by Mussolini’s successful march on Rome. I wish we had had one more day in Munich, we wanted to visit a concentration camp that was outside the city, but we just didn’t have time. We met so many great people though. I’m still feeling a little sick, so I’m planning on staying in my Rome home this weekend and recovering. It will be nice to have my first weekend at home to enjoy the city. 

Today, Tuesday, was my first wine tasting in my food and wine class. It didn’t even feel like I was in class haha. An expert international wine taster, Francesco, spoke to our class about Sicilian wines. The wines we tasted came from grapes that were near Mount Etna, so they had a very smoky aspect to them. I learned that while France has 27 different kinds of wine grapes, just Sicily alone has 11. And the US has only one kind native to it: Zinfandel. It might just be my favorite class, and we have three other wine tastings throughout the semester. I also learned today that I will start tutoring a nine-year old Italian girl named Sara on Tuesdays starting in October, so I’m excited about that. Tomorrow, classes are cancelled so we can attend an audience with the Pope! And tomorrow night is the second game of calcio for the semester, so stay tuned!

Ciao Tutti! I send my love!