Castles and Cake

            I spent this past weekend traveling all over Germany with a group of friends, in search of pretty castles, some part of the Black Forest, and some yummy authentic Black Forest cake.  Good news-- we found all three!  We were exhausted from so much travel and sight seeing by the end of the weekend but we had fun.

            We left early Friday morning to get to Heidelburg, which involved a ridiculous amount of train changes.  Along the way, we ran into Drs. Baker and Abell, our professors!  They were also headed to Heidelburg for the weekend.  I love running into them all the time while traveling- they are adorable, and so very wise and inspirational!  In Heidelburg, we explored the town, which is more touristy than I expected but very cute.  There are tons of squares with interesting fountains, some odd trees, and of course, old churches.  We hiked up to the castle (Europe lesson # 85230932: all the best things are at the top of a huge hill and involve a hike that will very nearly kill you but it's always worth it) and it was gorgeous- we could see the whole town and the river. 

            All of the trees are changing colors here, and for someone from Louisiana and southeast Texas who has never experienced a real autumn, it is a wonderful shock each and every time I step outside and get to see all the trees splotched with brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow.  These trees were especially beautiful, and the sun came out while we were on top of the hill; it was perfect.  We didn't see much inside the castle except for a huge barrel where they used to keep some kind of alcohol- it was two stories high!  Outside, there was a park and fountain, so we relaxed up there for a while and made friends with a squirrel.  After that, we hopped on a train and headed toward Triberg, a small town in the Black Forest.

Heidelburg is falling apart!

            We arrived in Triberg with absolutely no plans, not even a hostel reservation or an idea of where one was.  It seems that God was watching out for us, because as we began to meander into the town, we came across a lady walking home from grocery shopping with her daughter, and when we asked her about places to stay, she made it her personal mission to find us a place to stay, and she took us all around the town, showing us hotel and going inside with us to ask about prices.  She was really feisty and kept trying to haggle with everyone to get us a good deal, it was hilarious!  After we found a really great place to stay, we had a lovely dinner complete with Black Forest cake, which was so delicious!  I have been missing cake!
           
             On Saturday, we hiked through part of the forest right outside Triberg to see a waterfall.  We hiked up high and got to see the whole town and the hills blanketed in bright fall trees, it was really peaceful. 

            Again, I am realizing that my favorite moments here are when I'm outdoors, surrounded by nature.  It was great until... I fell in the creek that feeds the waterfall!  We had all gone down off the path to put our feet in the creek and take pictures on the rocks, and I was trying to follow one of my friends who had climbed up the rocks, and I just completely slipped and wiped out and got submerged in the creek!  I clumsily struggled out and back up onto a rock, and I was curled up in a little ball laughing hysterically, but everyone thought I was crying so they were just staring at me in shock; it was quite an awkward, chilly moment but it's been fun retelling the story to everyone back in Maastricht. 

Just a little damp...

            We shopped at some adorable Christmas shops, then the rest of the day was spent on trains getting to Fussen, our last stop of the weekend, which is the closest town to the Neuschwanstein castle!
In Fussen, I had my first actual hostel experience, and... well, I won't say much, except that I hope that we will continue to be as lucky as we have been in finding super-cheap two star hotels to stay at instead of hostels! It wasn't horrible, but I've definitely been spoiled so far, so it was an adjustment.  The castle was the main focus of our time in Fussen, though- we spent most of the day Sunday there.  There are actually two castles there: Hohenschwangau is a smaller castle that was the childhood home of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and when he grew up, he moved out and built a new castle for himself only a few minutes away, which is the "fairy tale" Neuschwanstein castle.  Unfortunately, the weather was extremely foggy- so bad that we couldn't even see the castle when we were right in front of it! 

Hohenschwangau

Neuschwanstein through the fog

            We could tell it would have been gorgeous if we could have seen it from a distance all nestled into the hills with those wonderfully bright fall leaves though.  We took guided tours through each of the castles, and I was surprised to learn about their history, especially how new they are- they were built in the mid 1800's!  I guess I had always thought they were medieval castles that generations of royalty had lived in, but really that was the only family that ever lived there, and not even for very long.  The insides were very gorgeous and ornate- my favorite part was the floor of the throne room that was entirely a mosaic- amazing.
           
             After a full day of castle touring and exploring a little bit in Fussen, we were exhausted and actually excited for our overnight train back to Maastricht.  It is always hard to sleep on those, but this time was a bit easier due to our level of exhaustion! I've been a little sick this week- that may or may not have something to do with falling courageously swan-diving into a freezing mountain stream and not changing clothes all day, and then not getting enough sleep.  This week was, as usual, packed with tests and projects, so I stayed here this weekend with my friends to catch up on work and hopefully health and sleep!  It's so crazy that we are almost DONE with the semester- finals start in a week and one day!  I am loving life here so much, and I'm already getting to the point where I get very upset and depressed thinking about all of this coming to an end, so I'm really trying to just enjoy the time I have left here and live in the moment.  How lucky I am to have these moments!

I love fall!

          So, I have been putting off blogging Italy because it feels so overwhelming... we were there for what felt like an eternity, though it was only about nine days.  Also, I loved Italy more than any other place I've ever been, and miss it so much that I've been too upset to write about it until now.  I guess I should just be thankful I got to have those experiences in the first place, right?  Right.  Be warned: this is a reaaaalllllllyyyy long post.  I promise I won't be offended if you don't read it all!  There was just so much to talk about, and I didn't want to leave anything out.

          We flew down to Italy as a group, but we only spent one day doing planned group activities, and the rest of the time was ours.  It was supposed to be our "mid-term" break (It's hard to believe, but at that point classes were halfway over!), and oh my goodness, it could not have come at a better time.  We were all pretty stressed out from the burden of endless tests and group project... our schedule when we are actually in Maastricht is very packed!  Italy was the absolute perfect place to relax and unwind- I traveled with such an awesome, laid back group, and for an entire week, our days were solely built around eating, (we scrapped the whole three-meals-per-day idea, and suddenly had days consisting of breakfast, breakfast part two, lunch, pre-dinner, and dinner, with multiple coffee and gelato breaks thrown in :) ), shopping, watching sunsets, spending time outside, and bonding as much as possible, with a little sightseeing thrown in when it didn't require too much planning or effort.  It.  Was. PERFECT.

           We arrived in Venice Sunday afternoon and took a bus to Padua, about thirty minutes away.  Except for a discussion of one of our required texts (Complications- such an amazing book, by the way!!), the rest of the day was ours to explore Padua.  It's an extremely charming town, full of shops, cafes, beautiful old architecture, winged lion sculptures, and little squares with clock towers where people gather to just sit back and enjoy food and life and each other.  We had our first Italian meal and spent a lovely, WARM (finally!  It had been so cold in Berlin and Maastricht!) evening in one of the squares with amazing gelato and just about every single person on the trip, which was fun.  The next day we toured the University of Padua which is ancient, and was home to many very important figures in the history of medicine, such as Vesalius (one of the first to perform dissections on humans- in a huge theater!) and Fallopio (a famous anatomist- bet you can guess what he discovered and named!), and even Galileo!  We saw the theater where Vesalius performed his dissections in front of hundreds of medical students, and the stand where Galileo taught, which was surreal.  After the tour, our professors said "Well... see you at the Milan airport in a week!", and just like that we were free to travel!  We had one more night in Padua that Baylor had booked though, so we just hung around there for the rest of the day and it was so nice- we shopped, went to the botanical gardens, dressed up and had a fancy dinner, then hung out in our favorite square with gelato and coffee all night.

          The next day, we got an early start to get back to Venice.  Our hotel was on the mainland in a quaint neighborhood called Mestre, so we walked around there a bit before heading to the island part of Venice.  It was crowded but so gorgeous!  It seems very eerily quiet, and it took us a while to realize that's because there are no cars and therefore no background street noise.  We didn't go on a gondola ride, but we had fun trying to navigate through the narrow, winding streets, and we stopped in lots of mask and glass shops along the way.  We sat in St. Mark's square for a while and admired the splendor of the cathedral-  definitely one of my favorites so far.  After relaxing by the water, enjoying what might have been the best gelato of the whole trip, and making a couple more shopping stops, we headed back to Mestre for the night.

          Wednesday, we had to go back to the island to take a train to Florence, which seems counter-intuitive to me, since Venice-Mestre is actually between Florence and the island part of Venice.  However, it worked out nicely because the next available train wasn't for a few hours, so we got to explore the canals and shops a little more.  I was on a mission to get Christmas ornaments for Mom and Dad, so we went back to the very crowded strip of shops near St. Mark's square.  The shops are so tightly packed in, and it was so crowded, that in trying to get around a guy with a huge backpack, one of us knocked a wine bottle stopper off a shelf and the shop owner freaked out and demanded that I pay.  The funny part was, she was so upset but then said "I give you half price.  If you find the pieces, you keep, but if it's broken, there is nothing I can do".  I thought this was a fair deal, so I paid, she gave me a little box and the metal half of the stopper, and I proceeded to get down on the street to look for the glass that had broken off, and... it was in one whole piece!  It just needs to be glued back to the metal, which is exactly how it had been attached in the first place!  The best part was, the original price was only 5 euro, so I got a perfectly fine wine bottle stopper for 2.50- quite a deal!  As my friend Sara said, things were just jumping off the shelves for me that day.

          After the prettiest train ride ever through rolling, green hills, we made it to Florence in the afternoon and were pleasantly surprised to find that our hostel was kind of like a loft apartment- so cute!  We wandered around the town and picked up some bread, salami, brie, and fruit, then headed up to the Piazza di Michelangelo which is at the top of a hill and is kind of intense hike to get to, and we had the most perfect picnic up there as the sun set over Florence.  The sunset was so red and intense and I loved how the light reflected off the pinkish roofs of the town, and we just sat up there for a few hours talking about life...It was just completely perfect.  I'm probably going to say that a lot about Italy, sorry. I don't think I'm exaggerating or being unoriginal, I think we really were just incredibly lucky to have a string of perfect moments!

Ponte Vecchio- a bridge with a bunch of jewelry shops on it

          We had designated Thursday as shopping and sightseeing in Florence day, so we began by touring the Duomo, a huge cathedral, and climbing up something like 426 steps to the dome- the view was so worth it!  The Duomo has a beautifully detailed painting in the dome; it's so amazing to wonder how the artists ever got up there to paint it all, and it must have taken forever.  Incredible.

          After coming back down, we split up and bravely ventured into the street market area, where bargaining is the norm and vendors yell at you and aggressively shove their merchandise into your face.  The friend I was with is black, and oh my gosh, they LOVED her- they kept yelling "Brown sugar!  Special deal for you honey!", hahaha.  She even got two free pairs of earrings!  Well, despite my pale skin color I got some great deals too- I got jewelry and a purse, and tons of presents for y'all!  After a hectic afternoon of shopping and walking around, we decided we were in need of another sunset picnic, but this time we got pizzas to bring up to the hill, and needless to say, it was another perfect night.

          Friday, about half of our group day-tripped to Rome!  I know, I know... "Who takes a day-trip to ROME?!".  We do, I guess.  It ended up being perfect for me- I wasn't a huge fan of Rome.  I can't even put my finger on why, all I know is that I'm glad we hadn't planned on staying there for a few nights like some Baylor people did.  For the little amount of time we were there, we saw tons of monuments though- this was the one day where we had to have an organized "attack plan".  We started at the Vatican, where we saw the cathedral and the Sistine chapel.  The cathedral was, like most here, gorgeous and huge and amazing to think about the fact that people probably dedicated huge portions of their lives building or painting it, just as a humble, earthly offering to God.  I don't know why, but this always amazes me.  I want to love Him that way- a whole magnificent, perfectly detailed cathedral's worth of love.

          The Sistine chapel was... a little underwhelming.  Maybe that's because it was so crowded though- we could barely walk through it.  We stopped by the Spanish steps and Trevi fountain, where of course I threw a coin in and made a wish.  We saw the Pantheon, then walked toward the Coliseum and came across something that ended up being one of my favorite things about Rome, though I'm not entirely sure what it was... I think it might have been some sort of war memorial though.  We saw the ruins and the Coliseum, and it was another one of those surreal moments.  After a nice dinner at a quiet pub, and of course some gelato, we trained back to Florence and arrived exhausted but satisfied with the day's adventures.

In the Vatican museum

           On Saturday, we started making our way to Cinque Terre, which is actually five cities along the Western coast of Italy.  On the way, we stopped in Pisa to see a certain tower... it is indeed very lean-y!  Upon arrival in Cinque Terre later that afternoon, I fell in love with it immediately and knew already that it was going to be hard to leave.  With dramatic, rocky cliffs, bright aqua water, green hills chock full of grapevines, and cheerfully colorful buildings studding the hills, how could anyone NOT love it?!  We checked into our hostel (again like a little apartment... we have been incredibly fortunate in finding great, cheap places to stay!)  and then ate "pre-dinner".  After that, we explored for quite a while, and then decided to continue our tradition of sunset picnics complete with bread, brie, and the best peaches I have ever had.  This was by far the best sunset- it's just hard to beat sunsets over the ocean!  Also, a storm was blowing in, so there was all this dramatic lightning against the darkening red sky... it was so powerfully beautiful that we just sat and took it all in in silence for a long time.

          We were staying in Rio Maggiore, the last of the five villages, so Sunday morning we trained about ten minutes to the last village, planning to hike through the villages all day.  We hung out at the beach there for a while.  It was rocky, but still gorgeous, and the rocks were all sorts of crazy colors.  We sat there for a while before commencing the hike.  It was so intense!  Huge segments of it are uphill on these narrow steps, and it had been raining so parts of the path were a little washed out.  Nevertheless, it was breathtaking (well, literally and figuratively...)- it was so green and smelled wonderfully earthy, and we got the best views of the ocean and hills and all the villages!  It took us two hours to get to the next village, and after lunch there, all but three of us gave up hiking for the day, haha.  I wanted to keep going though, because I was enjoying it so much.  I'm so glad I continued on the hike, because it ended up being my absolute favorite thing on the trip... it was just so pretty and tranquil.  Between camp this summer, and my experiences here so far, I'm realizing how much of a nature girl I am- I like the big cities, but I'm definitely happiest outside, surrounded by the trees and water and peaceful silence, with a little sweat on my forehead :)  We got back to Rio Maggiore just in time to see one last perfect sunset, and then we all went out for a dinner at an adorable restaurant in a gazebo with brightly colored glasses and the best lasagna I have ever had, except for possibly Mom's.  I'm not just saying this for brownie points Mom, but I had lasagna a lot in Italy and that was the only one that I liked as much as yours.  Really.


          After that, we just hung out back in our apartment and reminisced about the trip and whined about going back to Maastricht.  We weren't ready for the reality of mid-terms, projects, chilly wet weather, and three meals per day!  We had to leave way too early the next morning to train back to Milan and fly back to Brussels, then train to Maastricht... and we arrived in Maastricht around 9 PM!  Coming back was heartbreaking, but things are going well.  A lot of people stayed here this weekend just to have time to get schoolwork done, and it's been relaxing.  We are eagerly planning our next trip together, and that's what will get me through this next week of tests and projects!  The people I have been traveling with are so wonderful and completely make the experience, and I feel like I have them to thank for having the best week ever.  Italy itself is amazing, but it sure helps to travel with people who are able to be so laid-back and have a fun attitude, even when circumstances aren't perfect... but see, I hardly talked about the not so great moments from Italy, because I hardly remember them- that's how great everyone's attitude was!  We created our own perfect moments that week, and I will cherish those memories forever.

If you read all of that... you're awesome.

          Oh, and for some reason, I wasn't able to load some pictures that I really wanted to share... plus, I feel like I never put enough pictures on here anyway, because if I put too many it would overload the blog too much.  So, if you want to look at more pictures, they are on facebook!  Even if you don't have a facebook you should be able to look at them by copying & pasting this link:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=284700&id=658067914

lotts of love,
Allison

Berlin and Guben, Germany

          Oh my goodness, I know it has been forever since I last posted and I'm sorry!  It's just that we got back very late Monday night, then had a test Tuesday, presentation Wednesday, and another test Thursday, so I haven't had much time until now.  Plus, our trip was so long and so packed with amazing sights and stories that the thought of blogging it has been too overwhelming!  But I'll give it a try.

          We flew out of Brussels on Thursday, September 16, and arrived at our hotel in Berlin early that evening.  Since this was part of our group trip and Baylor booked the hotel, it was super nice!  It might be the fanciest place I have ever stayed, besides places we have been in Mexico.  There was a huge chandelier, extremely comfortable beds, robes and slippers in our room, and my favorite: the bathroom floor was heated!  I have no idea why, but that really fascinated me.  So after we all oohed and ahh-ed over our rooms, a group of us ventured out for dinner.  We hadn't been wandering long when we came across a Mexican place and unanimously decided to stop there because we have all been missing Mexican food so much!  Unfortunately, it was a little disappointing- the food was good, just... not the tex-mex I am used to.  But they did have delicious tortilla chips which we inhaled in a matter of minutes :)

          The next day, we had an early start, but no one was complaining after we saw the hotel's breakfast buffet.  There were fancy tablecloths and waiters who brought us drinks, but more importantly, they had every single breakfast food you could possibly imagine... omelets, waffles, pancakes, muffins, sausage, bagels, TONS of fruit, yogurt, and Europe's favorite breakfast item, NUTELLA!  We all went a little crazy.  After stuffing ourselves, everyone went on a bike tour together.  In spite of chilly, rainy weather, it was fun and very educational.  I think it's neat that Berlin's history is so recent and so relevant to our generation- When we went on the bike tour in Paris everything we saw had stories behind it dating back hundreds of years, but in Berlin, I feel like everything we saw was either tied to World War II or the Cold War.  Also, since much of Berlin was bombed and destroyed in World War II, the city is overwhelmingly modern, which is a big change from all the cities we have seen so far. 

 

It's a shame that it's so cloudy because when the sun shines it makes a cross on the ball, which is ironic because the architect was atheist and was trying to create a secular symbol for Berlin.

EVERYTHING in Berlin is under construction or is being renovated

Checkpoint Charlie

The Holocaust Memorial... it's a bunch of huge concrete pillars and when you get to the center it's lonely and you can't hear the city and everything looks uniformly gray and confusing so you are supposed to get a tiny glimpse of how Holocaust victims may have felt.

          After the bike tour, we toured Charité hospital as a group.  That was fun because we have learned about Charité Hospital in History of Medicine- it was initially a quarantine station outside the city where people coming into the city were checked for the plague, to prevent the spread of the disease within the walled city.  It then became a medical school hospital, and since then has been home to several famous physicians and researchers who have made huge discoveries and contributions to medicine.  I thought it would be a hospital, but the part that we visited was more like a museum.  The best part was at the end, where there were hundreds of specimens in jars, showing all kinds of diseased and malformed body parts... I know that sounds morbid and gross, but it was very exciting and fascinating to see some of the things we have been learning about in Pathophysiology firsthand.
          The next day, we took a bus over to Guben, about two hours away, to visit the plastinarium.  The plastinarium is where all of the Bodyworlds specimens are prepared before they are sent out to exhibitions.  Basically, plastination is the process of preservation to create art from dead bodies- they use a special technique that coats the tissues and turns them into plastic so that they can be preserved forever..  This way, people can see structures of the body without actually dissecting a body, and without the formaldehyde smell!  None of the bodies have skin, so you can really see every detail of the muscles and organs.  It's actually very beautiful and not at all creepy- the bodies almost look fake so it was hard for me to visualize them as actually having been real people.  The plastinarium acquires all their bodies from people who sign up to have their body donated after they die.  I don't think that's for me, but it's pretty popular and tons of people sign up, eager to live forever in a strange way.   Plastination is such an involved process that it takes over a year to complete one body!  They are working on animal specimens right now for a new exhibit, so they had a giraffe in a HUGE tank of preservative, it was quite smelly.

 

          The city of Guben is half in Germany and half in Poland; so of course we decided to walk over and check it out after our tour of the Plastinarium.  We were kind of in a run-down part of town so it wasn't too exciting and we soon left to head back to Berlin.  A couple of girls and I spent the rest of the afternoon riding on trains and getting lost in random places around Berlin, and we stumbled across some kind of rally or protest... there were tons of people there and whatever they were protesting, they were pretty riled up about it.  There were stickers, banners, flags, food and drink booths, and a band playing angry techno rally music.  We stuck around long enough to get stickers and pictures and plenty of laughs about the situation in general.  We found out later that it was a protest against nuclear energy- I guess we can support that.  I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be some kind of crazy anti-government rally because we proudly wore our stickers for the rest of our stay in Berlin!  That night, we all had a much needed girls night in, complete with comfy hotel robes, gummy bears, and banangrams. :)

"Atomkraft? Nein danke!" :)

          Overall, I liked Berlin and I'm glad we went there, but it's not my favorite place... it has such rich, recent history which was cool, but it's too modern and industrialized for me to want to stay there long-term.  My favorite things were the science-y things we got to see.  I was eager to get to Italy, and was pretty excited when we left early the next morning (after one last breakfast feast) to catch our flight from Berlin to Venice.
I don't want to disrespect Berlin and start gushing about Italy in Berlin's post but I'll just say that it was incredible and I can't wait to blog about it!  Hopefully that will come later today.