Oh, hey Tumblr. The internet and my lack of it will keep us apart no longer. I promise :)

It was so nice to be back in Italy. I had almost forgotten about my creepy Italian trees, the tall, skinny cypress trees I seem to only be able to find in Italy. I had been to Florence before, in 2007, so it was kind of fun being able to lead my small group of friends around, giving them bits and pieces of info and trivia that I remember learning four years ago. It was also really nice to already have the lay of the land in the back of my head, so we’d never get lost. The city is just as beautiful as I remember but being older definitely made this experience more valuable to me. I wasn’t worried about seeing the David this time, or buying the perfect souvenir for my friend’s brother’s blah, blah, blah. I was focused on food, wine, relaxing, exploring, adventuring. 

Our train left from Salzburg at 1:30 am on Friday morning, which was rough. Fortunately we all made it to the train station and no one was left behind. We switched trains in Venice before arriving in Florence around 11 am. We were all very tired but the weather was beautiful and we wanted to drop our stuff at our guest house and explore immediately. A few of us with the same goals (gelato, pizza & shopping) broke off from the group early. Here are a few shots of our first experiences of Florence 2011: 

We were focused. 

I know it’s hard to believe, but it tasted even better than it looks. As a matter of fact, I took half this pizza home with me on the train and forgot about it until just now. Woops. 

Il Duomo

I was IN HEAVEN with the amount of Vespas in Florence. 

The Ponte Vecchio, my favorite bridge ever. 

We had a great, low-key dinner on Friday night and, after unexpectedly running into Snooki (which was actually kind of cool), we called it a night and headed back to the guest house. We knew we needed to catch up on sleep and prepare for Saturday, because we had BIG plans for the morning…

NO BIG DEAL RIGHT? Well, it was awesome. We climbed all the way to the top of the Duomo, up 463 steps on Saturday morning. It was the most gratifying workout of my life. You could literally see for miles. 

After the terrifyingly steep decent, we set off to find the famous Florence leather market, where a few of us got to whip out our bartering skills. I think Amanda did the best; she came away with a 50 Euro wallet for 20. Dasha tried to barter but ended up getting reamed out by some crabby Italian guy right after getting hit on by a creepy Indian guy. Not a good day for Dasha. I gave up after a while and just decided to have some gelato and take pictures. 

After shopping we wandered around for a bit before heading back to the guesthouse to nap and get ready for our big night out. 

Sunday morning we headed straight for the Galleria Academia to see the David and other Michaelangelo works. I wasn’t dying to seeing it again, because I already had before but… when in Florence, right? I was actually surprised at how impressed I was by it a second time. There were no pictures allowed inside, but I was able to snag a great one with my cell phone: 

After seeing the David we roamed around town, did some last minute shopping, gelato-eating and sight seeing. We had a super hipster photo shoot on a bridge over the river in front of the Ponte Vecchio. All in all, I think we all loved Italy. The only thing that surprised me though are how much the Italians don’t like Americans. I didn’t expect that because I didn’t encounter that at all when I spent two weeks in Italy in 2007. I’m not saying everyone disliked us, but many did and they were not shy about it. I expect it was mostly fueled by the fact that the Jersey Shore is filming a new season in Florence right now and they are NOT what I’d like the Italians to associate with America. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was kind of disappointing to watch my friends get fined 100 Euro because they had apparently filled out their train passes wrong (a probably bogus fee). The ticket collector was obviously and openly rude to them just because they’re American. Or when Dasha was yelled at and insulted for being a, “stupid ****ing American” when she accidentally interrupted a leather salesman. I was even scolded on the train for using the first class bathroom accidentally because I didn’t know there was a difference. I wasn’t expecting to be judged immediately just because of the language I speak and the place I come from. It was a weird experience but fortunately I met enough kind Italians that they outnumbered the rude ones. 

And the city was beautiful enough to excuse anything that was less than perfect. 

I’m already looking forward to my next visit. Ciao, bella. 

This past weekend, all of the students of Salzburg College went on a four day trip to Wien, the capital of Austria. We left early on Thursday morning and arrived around 11 am. We then left to come back home at 5 pm on Sunday. And everything in between was a fantastic blur. We had a long walking tour on Thursday after we dumped our stuff at our fancy new hostel. The tour included tackling the 343 steps up a tall spire of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, giving us an awe-inspiring view of the Viennese skyline.

Later that day, I had a good time at a terrible dinner with a couple of friends before a huge open air concert at Schonbrunn Palace. The food made me sick all weekend (and still currently) but I refused to let it ruin my trip.

Photo credit to Sarah Pugh because I was too short and way, way in the back. 

The Sommernachtskonzert Schonbrunn is held only once a year and just so happened to fall on the night of our arrival. Hundreds of thousands flocked to the palace Thursday night to watch and listen to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra play selections from Liszt, Paganini, Sibelius, and Mussorgsky. A few of the pieces were accompanied by professional dancers performing Viennese waltzes. It was a magical experience. I only wish I had been a little taller so I could’ve seen it live instead of watching the large projectors on the sides. 

After making a few bad decisions at the bar Thursday night, I decided to ease into Friday morning by waking up a little early so I could wander around outside our hostel with two friends at the market. Our hostel was right in front of the Naschmarkt, the most famous and popular market in Vienna. It was awesome. We saw the same knockoff purses and soccer jerseys you can find on Canal Street but we also saw huge fish, unidentifiable fruits and vegetables, and stopped to talk to an Englishman living in Vienna about the difference between Spanish and Middle Eastern saffron. 

After the market, we went to the Hofburg Palace. The Hapsburg family used to live in this palace but now it’s half a museum and half the official residence of the president of Austria. We went to check out the musical instrument exhibit before lunch, but after seeing the instrument museum in Phoenix this past January, I was wholly unimpressed with the collection. The palace, however, was beautiful. 

After lunch (which I was still unable to enjoy because of how sick I was - the e-coli possibility blocking out all rational thought) we took a tour of the State Opera House, where a few of us also went to see Richard Strauss’s opera, Salome later that evening. 

On Saturday, the Northeastern music majors took a train to Eisenstadt, the home of the Eszterhazy family, Hungarian royalty who were part of the Hapsburg Empire. The palace, Schloss Esterhazy, was the place of employment for Joseph Haydn for almost 30 years. Half of the palace still houses the apartments of the last remaining Eszterhazy while the other half is a museum. 

This is the Haydnsaal, the royal concert hall in the palace. It’s famous for not only being the hall that Haydn himself exhibited his works in, but for having world renowned acoustics. After seeing this hall, we went behind the palace to the public gardens. 

On Sunday, Sarah, Amanda, Darian, Liz, Dasha, Matt (in that order in the picture below) and I woke up early to go to mass at the Imperial Chapel at the Hofburg Palace. We went specifically to see the Vienna Boys Choir perform Franz Schubert’s Mass in D Minor with the Vienna Philharmonic. It was an awesome experience and somewhat new to me, considering it’d been years since I’d been to a full mass. I loved every minute of it, even though we had no direct line of sight and had to watch the mass and the boys on flat screen TVs. Still, it was awesome. 

After mass, Darian and I headed for the Vienna Rosen Garten, which smelled just as beautiful as you’d think it would. I have rose petals pressed into my passport, which now smells amaaaaazing. 

My mom’s favorite! 

Before we headed back for Salzburg on Sunday afternoon, we took a tour of Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Hapsburgs, where the open air concert was held on Thursday night. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside which was a big disappointment. Vienna was heavily destroyed in the first and second World Wars, so many of the things we saw at the museums where artificial copies of former items, but at Schonbrunn, everything was authentic. It reminded me a lot of Versailles in Paris. Every room was breathtaking. But the outside of the palace has beautiful gardens, the same gardens that were hidden by over one hundred thousand people on Thursday. 

I also found a bretzel that was literally bigger than my face at Schonbrunn. It lasted me the whole three hour train ride back home. 

I’m gonna miss Vienna. 

I still haven’t really processed all the things I saw here, so I can’t explain anything. I just wish that the things that happened here had either not happened at all or had happened thousands of years ago. I don’t like thinking that this kind of evil cruelty happened so recently or that humans were capable of this level of destruction just a few generations ago. Visiting the Mauthausen concentration camp was a sobering and unforgettable experience. Please stop and think before looking at my pictures. This is a warning, because I’ve censored nothing. 

The stairs of death. These stairs were used as a method of extermination through labor. Hundreds of victims would be forced to carry heavy rocks up the stairs side by side for days on end without food or water. If one person fell, it was a fatal catastrophe for every one behind him. 

600 to 1200 people would live in this barracks, made to fit 300 at most.

Over 15,000 unidentified victims are buried here in mass graves.

This past Saturday, while my family was partying it up back east (at the Schmura-DeAntonio-Wedding-Weekend-Fest-O-Rama 2011) I went on the Sound of Music tour with three girlfriends. We had a blast, despite the dreary weather and almost losing my iPhone forever at the very end (thanks, guys, for dealing with my minor panic attack). We visited all the major places featured in the movie, including the multiple locations used for the von Trapp Villa, the ‘16 going on 17’ gazebo, the church where Maria and Captain von Trapp were married and, finally, the gardens where “Do, Re, Mi” was filmed. We had a really great tour guide and, yeah, they played the music from the film all through the ride. We all had to sing along. It was the epitome of cornball, which made it a lot of fun. We also learned some pretty interesting movie facts along the way. 

This was our super-subtle tour bus

This is Leopoldskron Castle. It was used for many exterior shots of the von Trapp Villa. This is also the lake where the rowboat tips over and Maria and the children fall out. Movie fact #1: the little girl who played Gretel could not swim and nearly drowned during shooting. In the film, the camera cuts away just as the children fall in, because everyone (crew included) dove into the water to save Gretel, who had accidentally fallen out of the boat on the opposite side of Julie Andrews, who always made sure to catch her. A cameraman rescued her and supposedly after a cup of hot chocolate, she was good to go. 

Movie Fact #2: this is not the gazebo’s original location. It was moved away from Leopoldskron Castle because the family that owned the castle was tired of tourists climbing their gates to get closer to the gazebo. Also, Movie Fact #3: this gazebo was only used for exterior shots. The interior shots of the gazebo were filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles with a convincing replica. The gazebo is locked up now, because apparently some little old lady twenty years ago decided to reenact the whole jumping-from-bench-to-bench thing and broke her hip..

This is the road where the Captain unknowingly drives underneath his children hanging from the trees. Movie Fact #4: All the low branches were cut off to, just like the gazebo, protect the safety of diehard Sound of Music fans. The house that serves as the entrance to the von Trapp Villa is down this road, but it’s private property and we weren’t allowed to get close. Movie Fact #5: When Maria is singing “Confidence” as she enters the gate, she races around the fountain at the front of the house and stumbles a little bit. The stumble was unscripted, a simple accident on Julie Andrews’ part. The director thought it fit the character of Maria and kept it in. 

This is the church where Maria and the Captain were married. Movie Fact #6: This church is about an hour outside of Salzburg, which makes it confusing when the movie shows Maria getting ready in the Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg and immediately continuing to this cathedral in Mondsee. 

After the four of us had lunch at a delicious restaurant in Mondsee, we went inside the cathedral and accidentally wedding crashed. 

Woops. 

After Mondsee, to finish off the tour, we headed to Mirabell Gardens and hopped up and down the “Do, Re, Mi” steps because we decided to fully board the tourist train. Movie Fact #7: The high C that Maria sings when she reaches the top step was totally unscripted. The director didn’t even know that Julie Andrews could reach the note. 

Like I said, we FULLY boarded the tourist train. Also, this is what it looks like when Steph loses her balance and almost falls into a fountain fully dressed immediately after posing for the above picture:

UNSCRIPTED. 

I’ve been here for two weeks now. It’s weird to think about because I feel like I’ve been here for a year and then I feel like I’ve been here for just a day. I’m surprised at how at home I feel here and how little I’ve been homesick. I didn’t experience any culture shock coming into Austria, which probably means I’ll have a bit of it going out but I’m not worrying about that yet. That’s Boston’s problem. Today I realized that I’ve never explained at all about where I live, so here’s a shot of my house from yesterday afternoon.

We live on the first floor and our host parent’s grown daughter lives on the second floor. It’s a cute little house about 20 minutes (by bus) from the city center. Our host dad works at the newspaper and our host mom has a part-time job at the grocery store, I’m assuming to keep herself busy. They have five grown children, the youngest son being 27. They have a couple grandchildren, too. Our host mom, Charlotte, seems to be happy that Sarah and I are here. I think she really likes having young people to cook for and take care of. She cooks every night and makes us a great breakfast every morning. Sarah is a picky eater, and it’s been really funny watching her trying to work around that. She gets so frustrated and she sighs a lot, but recently she’s been laughing about the weird food choices Sarah makes. She and her husband speak very little English, so we’ve been busting the dictionary at almost every meal. It’s difficult, but we make it work. Last night our host parents argued over a map for a solid fifteen minutes, trying to find some city or another. It was pretty hysterical so I snapped a picture with my phone.

My first week here was all about sightseeing and being touristy. Besides the trip to Prague, everything has been pretty much planned out for us. We had excursions and day trips which were fun, don’t get me wrong, but our program director treats us like we’re five sometimes, so it was really good to get away for the weekend on our own. In my second week, I found myself with a lot more free time. Sometimes all I want to do is get a beer by the river with one of my friends. I go shopping or exploring most days after class. I love going shopping by myself here. If I’m with another person it’s fun too, but when I’m by myself I’m not talking to anyone, so it’s not super obvious that I’m an American. My biggest goal has been blending in.

I have a few fun things coming up that I’m looking forward to. This Saturday, while everyone I know at home is happily partying with my brother and sister-in-law who are back in PA for the first time in two years, I’m doing the most touristy thing any American can do in Salzburg, Austria: the Sound of Music tour. It’s true, no one here knows the movie at all, but they have certainly profited off the free advertising for the past forty-six years. On Sunday I’m headed to Upper Austria. We’re going to the lake district again, a few of Joseph Haydn’s old hangouts, and a former Nazi concentration camp. It should be an interesting day and I’m sure I’ll be posting about it. All of my remaining weekends are filled up with trips to other cities. First Vienna, then Venice, then Paris and London! Time is going to fly by, I can feel it. So for now, I’m taking it easy enjoying every cappuccino I drink and every street I walk down.