CHANGE OF ITINERARY

As most of you have heard Istanbul, Turkey just underwent a terrorist attack this past weekend killing 17 civilians as injuring over 150. The city also experienced another attack about ten days ago when five people were killed outside the US Consulate. After many meetings, phone conferences, and anticipation we have all been told we will now be going to Alexandria, Egypt instead of Istanbul this week. We’re currently 1,000 miles away so tomorrow will be a “sea day” (no classes!) and we will arrive to Alexandria on Wednesday. It was tragic to hear that this event took place but due to safety and liability the administration decided bringing 600 American students into a country that just went through an act of terrorism is never a good idea.

Hope your Monday was less eventful than mine, but I must say Im very anxious to see some pyramids and mummies in a few days!!

When in Rome… and Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, and Capri...

Do as the Romans. Ninety-six hours was clearly not enough time to see one of the most gorgeous countries in the world. I started my week on Wednesday porting in the city of Naples. The city was neither the cleanest nor the safest, so the majority of us tried to get out of town as soon as possible. I started out by getting on a 40 minute metro/train to the fascinating archaeological site of Pompeii. I’m currently enrolled in an anthropology class so it was nice to have some background in the area and know what I was looking at. Pompeii was buried in 79 AD by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius killing 25,000 people in 19 hours. The city sat covered and untouched for 1700 years before it was rediscovered. Nearly only 1/5 of the city has been excavated which we all saw. It was incredible to see the preservation of the city overall the years. You could see all the different craft shops, restaurants, pottery, and everything else still standing. After Pompeii I went back to Naples for the evening. I ended up catching up with my parents and Nick for awhile on the phone as well as some others online. After pizza and gelato I ended my night early so I could wake up for Rome.

There were about forty students and ten adults who all took busses to Rome for 2 days. Upon arrival we went to a typical Italian restaurant. We had traditional spaghetti and tiramisu. It was quite delicious; afterwards we headed to the Colosseum which was one of my favorite parts in Rome. The thing is absolutely huge, in modern times it resembled a huge stadium like Fed Ex or Michigan’s “Big House.” It held over 80,000 people. We had a guided tour which bypassed us through the hours long wait to get into the structure. Once we were inside our guide gave us some highlights… There were three sections for seating based on class, they could have it filled in less than twenty minutes, and on average ten people died in the gladiator combats as well as hundreds of animals dying. After our intro we got to walk around and go to the top to take pictures which was an awesome view. After the Colosseum we went to the hotel to unpack our things and then headed to dinner where I had the best meal in Italy. We ended up meeting up with another SAS Rome group, there was about 100 of us plus 10 other tables of other people all sitting outside. The restaurant was on the outskirts of town but it’s exactly how you would picture Italy with a perfect Tuscany setting with old Italian guys playing guitar and the accordion, and big candle torches lit all on the outside of the restaurant. Not only was the setting gorgeous was the food and wine were great too! They served us Manicotti along with other Italian dishes. After dinner we all got back on the bus and headed to the city for the night tour. We stopped at the famous Trevi Fountain. There were hundreds of people there throwing coins in and making wishes. It’s one of the most popular hotspots at night, history says if you throw one coin in you’ll return to Rome and if you throw two in you’ll find love in Rome. I didn’t necessarily need to meet the love of my life at the bar Sloppy Sam I was headed too so I decided to just throw one hopefully returning sooner rather than later! From Trevi we headed to the Pantheon. It’s currently the oldest standing structure in Rome dating back to about 70 BC. The building had gorgeous pillars and scriptures all throughout; from the looks of it you would have never guessed it was over 2000 years old. After the Pantheon we went to Piazza Navona which had lots of street vendors and music playing in the square. At this point the old folks headed back to the hotel and the young crowd went to another square called Campo di Fiore where all the bars were. My dear friend Kim Galloway studied in Italy and recommended everywhere I needed to see, eat, and drink. I hit most of them including the two bars Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam. They had a really fun atmosphere where we met a few other Americans who were backpacking and studying in Italy, along with many other people from all over the world.

Our wakeup call at 6:30am the next morning came earlier than expected. After prying ourselves out of bed we grabbed breakfast in the hotel and gathered in the lobby. (If I see you this summer remind me to tell you the story about one of our guys who got locked into the bathroom in his hotel for 8 hours. Seems as though the hotel didn’t have a key, screwdriver, or axe.) Anyway after everyone got all of their stuff together we got back on the bus and headed to the Vatican Museum. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the Pope but I did get to stand in awe in the Sistine Chapel and admire Michelangelo’s work of the scenes from Genesis along with the Last Judgment. Although the artwork has been cleaned over the years it hasn’t been touched up in anyway. The color and detail were absolutely unbelievable; every other person looked like they were popping out of the wall. Taking pictures is not allowed but I snuck a few after I saw many other people doing so, unfortunately my pictures w/ no flash don’t do justice to the artwork. At the age of 25 he completed the ceiling in four years and then went back and did the sides years later in another four years, nearly all by himself. After visiting the chapel we went to St. Peter’s Basilica and saw many more pieces of art, sculptures and architecture. When we finished with the tours we had hours of free time. We grabbed lunch, shopped around and then went across the city to see the Spanish Steps. Luckily when we were there it was relatively quiet with many tourists taking pictures; last summer there was a crazy guy who got the great idea to drive down the stairs at high speed, no one was hurt but many of the steps were chipped.

After seeing as much as Rome as possible in 36 hours we got back on the bus back to Naples. Arriving around 7:30 my friend and I grabbed the last ferry at 8:15 to Sorrento, a southern city in Italy on the coast. Sorrento was gorgeous at night time; the entire was city was lit up including all the villas that sat up on the cliffs up above. We began our trek up the mountain to our hostel, after about a 45 minute hike we finally arrived to the beautiful Village Campogaio. My other three friends from the boat, also Hoosiers, were there along with one of my friends Lindsay who recently graduated from IU and is living in Italy for the summer. After checking into our cabin (vinyl siding, no window or light, and a porch door) we found our friends and hung around the campsite and told travel stories for the rest of the night.

The next morning we awoke early to the sun beating down on us. We gathered our things and headed down the cliffs to the beach. After hanging around Sorrento for a bit we caught a ferry to Capri. This island so happens where all of the beautiful rich and famous people spend their summers there. Brad Pitt, P. Diddy, and many others have often been spotted in Capri. I unfortunately didn’t see them, but I did see yachts that could have cost upward to 100 million dollars. Capri was gorgeous, there were huge villas on top of cliffs and restaurants and shops everywhere. We spent the next six hours lying on the beach and huge rocks and swimming in the Mediterranean. Every once in awhile we sat back and got to see what Paradise really looked like. After grabbing my 10^th gelato (at least 2 a day) we took the ferry back to Naples. It was very sad to leave such a beautiful country, especially knowing that I had two 5 pages papers due when I got back. I’m almost half way to Turkey in the middle of the Mediterranean; the water is an incredible deep blue and very smooth. It’s very much a tease as I would give anything to go water skiing right now. Somehow I think I’ll survive though as I go back and look over my pictures from the past four days and look forward to Istanbul, Turkey.

Travels to the capital of the EU, chocolate, beer, and diamonds

Last Monday we arrived into Antwerp, Belgium. A vast majority of our 600 students hopped on the train to travel two hours to Amsterdam, Holland. I was lucky enough to meet up with my personal tour guide for the day. I think we established he was my second cousin in-law. He’s my sister in law’s cousin, so we’ll go with that, anyway his name is Sebastian and he’s lived in Holland his entire life. Sebastian and his friend Kevin met up with my three friends and me to take us around the city. Our first stop was our hostel to drop off our belongings. After that we walked around the city for awhile as they pointed out all the key tourist areas, souvenir shops, upscale shops, the royal palace, grocery stores, etc. After walking around for awhile be ventured to the city park to relax for awhile. It was a huge open area with lots of people reading, playing Frisbee, and chatting with each other. It was great to get out of tourist mode for awhile and sit and people watch for bit.
After the park we went to one of the most popular museums, I’m sure you’re all excited to hear about the famous Van Gough artwork I saw, but unfortunately I didn’t make it there as we decided to go to the SexMuseum instead. I’ll let everyone use their own imagination; let’s just say it was very informative and graphic. Once we were done with the museum, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for our evening. We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to Amsterdam’s popular comedy show, Boom Chicago. The four person cast was from the states; the show was completely improv and they just worked off the audience the entire time. It was quite hilarious.
After the show we went to some bars by our hostel in the red light district. It was quite an adventure. They had some great beer on tap, both Dutch and Belgium beer. It just so happens that about ever 20 ft there are classy women standing in glass doors trying to get guys to come in and have a nice conversation with them from $75-$200. Sebastian and Kevin took us back to our hotel and they headed back to their place about 20 minutes outside the city.
Tuesday, Steph and I did more sightseeing and tried to meet up with various friends who were in the city. After walking in circles all over the city we found the Ann Frank House Museum. The museum was very enlightening. The house and attic where she and her family hid out for years still stands and has been redone as to what the attic would have looked like in the 40s when she was there as a little girl. There were a few three minute videos to watch, they were interviews of people who either knew Ann Frank or were in that area at the time. The museum also had quotes all over the walls from her diary. The tour ended with a video of Otto Frank, Ann’s father, and how he was given her journal years later, it took him a while to read it but once he finally did he helped edit the book. The diary has been translated to 65 different languages and is still one of the bestselling books worldwide. To think that a 10 year old girl went through all of this was absolutely tragic to see. If you ever make it to Amsterdam the Ann Frank House is certainly a spot that you have to see.
Later that night, Sebastian came to meet up with us to hang out for a bit. The night consisted of more people watching and pub hopping in the red light district.
Wednesday morning we took the train to Brussels, the capital of the European Union, NATO, and Belgium. The city was phenomenal. We started our day with Belgium culture of course. Fries and beer....both excellent. Then we proceeded to check out all the sites. We went to an incredible church, Cathedral de la Kapelle. It was gorgeous, after visiting this church Steph and I decided we were going to attend a church service while we’re in Rome next week. My favorite part of Brussels was the Royal Palace and Parliament. There was a huge area of grass with a few fountains that sat in between the two buildings, much like the National Mall in DC.
Once we finished all the hotspots in Brussels we grabbed a waffle for the road and headed back to the ship in Antwerp. It seems as though the entire shipboard community decided to go a bar recommended by a local which so just so happened to be a karaoke bar. It was quite comical seeing all the guys up there singing oldschool Backstreet Boys songs.
On our last day we went to the famous Antwerp Zoo. The zoo opened over 150 years ago and had over 5,000 different animals. It was quite impressive, the chimps and tigers were my favorites. After leaving the zoo I found some free internet where I got to catch up with a few people on instant messenger. Im now currently at sea heading to Italy for the next five days. I have midterms in all of my classes so it’s going to be a busy few days. Hope everyone has a great weekend, shoot me an email when you are all back at work on Monday!

-ANM

Copenhagen, Denmark- The Happiest Place on Earth

It’s true... My Lonely Planet book states this country has been named with the happiest people in the world. I think it’s a very safe bet. These past four days have been the best yet by far. I may be saying that after every country, but Copenhagen was absolutely incredible and blew Bergen and St. Petersburg away.

Tuesday: Our boat was about an hour from Copenhagen so we all took the train to the city and booked out hotels and hostels for the week. We all looked like very American tourists with our huge backpacks and maps as we came out of the train station. The city was very compact and really easy to get around. Everything was under a twenty minute walk, very much a relief compared to Russia. Our first day we hit the sites and hung out in the Radhuspladen central square which was right in the middle of the city with live music and food carts everywhere. Copenhagen was having their annual Jazz Festival so everywhere you looked there was Jazz music going on. It was awesome; there were even a lot of the Jazz guys from Chicago there which was really neat to see.

We later went out to enjoy a night on the town. We met some great locals and we talked with them all about their lives in Copenhagen and how we loved their city compared to Russia. We really know how to win people over. In return they taught us a drinking chant which I’m sure many of us will try to bring it to the states.

Wednesday: Unfortunately for our wallets this city is known for their shopping and ice cream. I of course took complete advantage of both of these. This occupied half of our morning and then we later walked to the harbor and took a boat cruise which took us all around the city of Copenhagen for an hour. It was absolutely incredible, our weather was perfect and our tour guide was very informative about all the sites we saw. The huge Opera House and library sit out on stilts in the canals; they are huge glass and granite buildings. We also saw Slotsholmen which is where a lot of government buildings are located, Frederiksstaden which is the home of the royal family and the Marmorkirke ; an elaborate church with a huge dome inspired off a church constructed in Rome. Copenhagen is also famous for the Little Mermaid Statue; it’s similar to the Mona Lisa in Paris. You have to go see it when you’re there, but once you do you become very disappointed with the size of this historical famous piece of artwork. Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote children stories like The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, and Thumbelina, lived in Copenhagen in the 1800s so much of the city has little things in honor of him. The Little Mermaid being the most famous, it was a mermaid statue about 3 feet tall with about 500 people crowded around it trying to take their picture with it.

After the boat tour Steph and I hopped a thirty-five minute train to Malmo, Sweden for shopping and dinner. She later went on to see an old friend and then I turned around to head back to Copenhagen to meet back up with my friends. It’s hard to believe that two cities so close to each other have a completely different languages, government, and currency. Due to the close proximities much of their cultures are interchangeable.

Thursday: Since the majority of my normal travel group went to Sweden for the day I spent the next two days with my roommate, Maribel, and her normal crew. We shopped a bit and then went to Tivoli Gardens which is their famous amusement park which sits right in the city of Copenhagen and has been around since the 1840s. Most of the rides they have look like they could have been there from the 1800s. Many were old and rickety just as I expected. There were tons of cute shops and restaurants all throughout the park. They had a swing ride which took you up a few hundred feet and gave you a view of the entire city. The site was gorgeous; it was certainly the best seat in the house to see every corner of Copenhagen.

After reliving our days as kids in amusement parks we went back to our hostel to get all dolled up for our evening. Our night started with about 50 kids from SAS going to a very small bar. This bar was called the ABSOLUT ICEBAR. When you walk in the employees hand you a huge oversized coat and gloves to put on. As you walk into the bar everything is ice, the benches, your glassware, the bar itself, tables, the menu, etc. Due to the temperature and demand you are only allowed to be in there for 45 minutes. After leaving this bar we all head to other bars before we head to one of their famous clubs in the city, Luux. One of our friends was gracious enough to make a few phone calls and put down some money to reserve entrance for 100 of his closest SAS friends at this club. Since there aren’t many clubs in Bloomington I didn’t have much to compare it too, except my South Beach experience this past April. They were relatively similar, last night we had much more fog and trance music. And I’m quite certain the Americans outnumbered the Danes in the bar. Whereas in Florida, the Americans were the minority.

Friday: We had some last minute souvenir shopping and grabbed my first international McD’s for lunch. Very tasty, less greasy, but you had to pay for the ketchup.
It was very sad to depart from Copenhagen, but I know when/if I ever make it back to Europe this will certainly be one city I will be sure to hit. The whole experience was incredible and I even got to catch up with my mom and my brother, Ted on the phone.
I have a two day travel to Antwerp, Belgium where I’ll then hop on a train first thing Monday and head to Amsterdam for two days. I’m even lucky enough to be meeting up with my sister-in-law’s cousin, Sebastian, who has lived there his whole life. He’s going to show us around the city all day and we’re going to a comedy club that night. The other two days I’ll spend in Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium.

It’s just after 9pm here, I think I’m going to bed, have a great weekend. -ANM

Happy 4th, Russian Style

What an eventful five days. These past days in Russia have been absolutely nonstop. Our week started off trying to get 600 people through Russian customs, three hours later it was great to be off the dock. Everyone was two hours late for all the tours we signed up for. Needless to say, they all took place, just a bit delayed. A group of us got on a small boat which was on the Neva River along with other canals. All the sites were incredible, the entire city is surrounded by water so it was really pretty, unfortunately the speaker was broken on the boat, so we had no idea what we were looking at.
After a bit of that we saw a few sites like St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage, and a few other spots. We got stop by a souvenir shop afterwards, we were greeted with big smiles and a shot of free Vodka as you walked in the door. Welcome to Russia. After a bit more sightseeing we ended our night relatively early as we wanted to get an early start on Wednesday.
Due to the location of our boat, it was a 45 minute walk and needed to cross a bridge to see anything of significance in St. Petersburg. The walk was quite dreadful, crossing traffic is a nightmare, pedestrians never have the right of way and they all drive like a bat out of hell. After I crossed the street the first time I was more scared of getting hit by a car than I was of the thousand warnings of pick pocketers in the city. We spent our day with more sightseeing and went to the Church of Spilled Blood. It’s an incredible church that’s now used as a museum where Alexander II was brutally murdered. This building was probably the most incredible structure I’m yet to see, it looks like something you’d see in Disney at the Magic Kingdom. Wednesday night we went to see the Swan Lake ballet. It was very impressed with the choreography and the incredible orchestra. It was no Barn Theatre performance, but still a very memorable experience. Afterwards we went to this bar called Liverpool. The owner is from England and is a huge Beatles fan. The menu was even in English, therefore we were in heaven.
At the beginning of the week we were really hoping to travel to Moscow on the overnight train which takes about 8 hours. About 100 kids went at the beginning of the week through SAS and had quite the experience. The city is 10 times more spread out than St. Petersburg, and said it would have been an absolute nightmare if we were to go on our own. Unfortunately a lot of them didn’t have the best trip. One bus load of students saw a man about twenty feet from them on a three story scaffolding slip and fall shattering every bone in his body. Another bus saw a terrible fatal car accident happen at the intersection they were at. A car clearly did not see the red light and was going well over 70 mph and slammed into a car a few yards in front of them. Everyone said there is no away any of these people could have survived, but we obviously don’t have that confirmed. After hearing these freak accidents we decided we didn’t need to go to Moscow.
Back in St. Petersburg Steph and I put on our walking shoes on Thursday and covered every square inch of the city. We went into every museum, cathedral, and palace and we find on a map. We spent about 14 hours on the main island and came home around midnight. I was told the Hermitage is the largest museum in the world, if you spent one minute at each piece of work it would take six years to see everything. We cruised through it in under three hours and I think I saw everything. They had incredible works of art of Picasso, Monet, and Leonardo Da Vinci. A lot of the work dated back to the 15th and 16th centuries. After the Hermitage we went back to St Isaac’s Cathedral and hiked up about 500 steps to get to the top dome where you could overlook the entire city, the view was incredible. We also went inside the Church of Spilled Blood, the entire fixture was made from mosaic. This artwork was unbelievable. My pictures don’t really do justice, but I did get some good ones! Around sunset (midnight) we decided we better head back to our island to meet the rest of the group at the pub and call it a night.
Friday wasn’t your typical 4th of July. A group of us went to look at a school about an hour away from the city for one of my classes. It was a “standard” high school in one of the most rundown buildings with no sign out front implying the warehouse is actually a learning facility. When we were there, there was a group of 25 kids aged from 7-12 there for a summer camp playing games. They all came up to us, said hi, their age and their name. That was the extent of their vocab. It was fun to see the games they played, very similar to ours, I got a big group and played catch with a few of the kids and then taught them monkey in the middle. It was very funny. After hanging out with them, we got a tour of the school and learned about their curriculum. It seemed quite similar to ours, much more emphasis on Russian composition, it seems as though their language is more confusing than ours, and Russian literature and history. As shady at the school was I was very impressed to hear that nearly 100% graduate from high school as well over 90% will attend some sort of college or professional education for at least two years before starting a career.
Friday night there were over 100 SAS kids hanging out at the two bars which are about 50 feet from the boat. This is usually where most people started their night and tended to venture off from there. Do to the dance show we received from a local lady cougar no one wanted to leave. Much to our surprise we saw fireworks way off in the distance. This moment nearly brought tears to our eyes as we all reminisced over our favorite 4th of Julys back home. Not your typical 4th of July celebration, but certainly one I will remember forever.
After last minute shopping we all headed back to the boat early so we could get through customs at a reasonable time. The crew put on a huge BBQ for us on the top deck complimented with an American flag cake and USA decorations.
I think it’s safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in St. Petersburg. This country has certainly been through incredible turmoil in the last fifty years and it’s incredible to witness the progress they have made. Next stop Copenhagen, Denmark/Sweden. Better get working on my class work; I have three six page papers due in the next 48 hours. Stay tuned for updates later in the week.