Sunrise over Corsica

Our next stop after Venice was the island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean off the coasts of Italy and France. We arrived in Toulon, France by dinnertime Tuesday, met up with Matt and Molly, who were coming from Paris after doing their own things for the first weekend, and grabbed some Chinese food. Spiciness, finally, I’d been missing it like crazy here in Europe. And then we boarded a ferry, which was more of a cruise ship, but super cheap considering, overnight to Corsica. Even though we had been up early the day before to catch our train to Toulon, we got up early Wednesday morning to see the sunrise over the island.

It was gorgeous. Like heaven on earth, hence the title of this blog. I mean, just take a look at the pictures. I knew from pictures and people talking that Corsica was supposed to be amazing, but it just didn’t compare to being there ourselves. (I didn’t get to see dolphins… That was a huge disappointment, but the rest of Corsica definitely made up for it.)

On the beach by the citadel

So we landed early in the morning, found a tourist office to leave our luggage at, grabbed some coffee to keep us awake, and then headed to a beach! We found one by the walls of an old citadel after only five minutes of walking. It was seriously beautiful. And really warm, perfect temperature to be in the Mediterranean on an island. And sunny. Really, just the perfect day. So we played in the sand for a bit, clambered over rocks on the coastline, and ran into the sea to swim in the perfectly crystal-clear water. And tossed a Frisbee, probably my favorite part.

Frisbee in the Mediterranean 🙂

After relaxing for a few hours, though, we decided it was time for lunch and to go get some open water kayaks. So we did. Sarah and Molly actually did get into a kayak, I was so proud of them! Even though they freaked out and decided staying on the beach was a better idea. So Matt and I headed out for a few hours of pure bliss off the coast of the most beautiful island in the most beautiful sea in the world. In my humble opinion. The best few hours of the entire trip so far, without contest, and that’s saying something. Although seeing my best friend Kate in Athens tomorrow may just be up there too. It’ll be a hard choice!

Matt on a kayak

By the time we got back and FINALLY found food that was open, it was dark and we only had a couple hours before our overnight ferry back to Toulon left, so we relaxed for a bit and got ready to live in a moving water palace again for a night. And to shower, because all that saltwater and wet clothes just weren’t gonna cut it for another 24 hours. And after all that exercise and the great fried dinner we got on the boat, we crashed like babies.

So now I’m in Rome (after way too long on trains) for the night, ready to board my flight to Athens in the morning. And I really can’t wait to see just how the second weekend and then next week of break compare to the first. If it’s even close, these will be some of the best two weeks of my life.

Rest of the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/100454144518688283131/HeavenOnEarth

Sunrise behind Doge's Palace

Venice was amazing, beautiful, relaxing, and just really really cool. We left Rome late at night, and got into Venice at 5:30. Yes, a.m. Which turned out to be a great decision, because we were able to see the sunrise over Venice. And since Venice is a huge tourist trap, being there in the wee early hours of the morning gave us a glimpse of its beauty before being invaded by humans. After finding the square with Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica, we sat for a while and just enjoyed the beauty of the sea and the old buildings and the sunrise. And then found somewhere to get hot chocolate and croissants at like 8 for breakfast. We were starving at that point, obviously. But nobody else was up yet, so we had the outside café all to ourselves (well, we shared with the pigeons).

After our hostel opened and we could drop our bags off, we headed out again to tour St. Mark’s Basilica before the afternoon, hoping to beat the crowds. Fail. I doubt there’s such a thing as beating the crowds in Venice. But still, we got to see it, and it was just magnificent. Especially the golden altarpiece and the ceilings, which were painted gold or had gold mosaic or something gold. And the bones of St. Mark were under the altar (supposedly, obviously). So after facing the crowds, we decided it was time to wander the streets a bit, since the best part of being in Venice was getting lost with all the canals and bridges and old houses surrounding you.

But we were also starving, so we cut our wanderings a bit short in search of good fish. Which was also a fail. Guess our trying to find something fast and cheapish gave us that quality of fish too. So to counteract our disappointment and tiredness we grabbed a seat on the steps on the Grand Canal and took a good hour, two hour nap. And were still a bit lazy afterwards and so decided wandering again was our best option. We found so many Venetian mask shops, and some cannoli (yum), and even some people walking around wearing costumes. It WAS Halloween, so it wasn’t just because they were crazy Venetians. Maybe.

St. Mark's Basilica

We headed back to the hostel a bit early, since we had been up since like five, and relaxed for a few hours before our free dinner with the rest of the people staying at the hostel. Which was a great chance to meet everyone from around the world and share travel stories (and the free food might’ve been the best part. I mean, I’m a student traveling. I appreciate ANYTHING that’s free). And then the staff of our hostel took us out on the city for a few hours, and though Venice at night was also super cool, it just can’t beat the sunrise.

Venice, though, is totally worth a trip. It was amazing, relaxing, and just beautiful. Even if it is a bit touristy. So to see all my pictures, follow this link: https://picasaweb.google.com/100454144518688283131/Venizia

On the Grand Canal

Now that my break is one week over (not halfway, not halfway until Saturday. Yes, I’m keeping track of every single day), and now that I have a bit of internet for once, I can add a few blogs to let y’all know what I’ve been up to for the past week. It’s been exciting! And will probably take a few different blogs.

So we (Sarah and I) started off our break on a night train to Rome. Didn’t want to waste any time by waiting until Saturday to travel! And we had a reservation, like we needed, so we get onto the train ready to grab our seats. Turns out we had reserved the wrong date.. It was confusing, ok? There were two dates since it was an overnight train. That’s our excuse. So we ended up trying to sleep on the floor by one of the doors. Which was just fine actually, had some room to spread out and it was pretty quiet, considering. Until like 3 a.m. when a huge group of Italians got on the train and decided the area we were in was the best part of the train to be in. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep after that. Especially since they stole all of our leg room. Some of the stereotypes about Italians, being loud and boisterous, are alas true.

Hall of maps inside the Vatican

But then we made it to Rome around 9 ready (somewhat) to start a sightseeing-packed day. Once we finally found our hostel and dropped our stuff off, we headed out to Vatican City. It was really really cool, in case you doubted it for some reason. We got hassled by about five different recruiters for tour guides before giving in and taking a tour. Bright side, we got to skip long lines and take a pretty personal tour, only five of us on it, and got more information than we would have otherwise. Downside, we paid a little extra and practically sprinted through the Vatican.. But if anyone wants to go visit, go with Discover Rome tours, we took them the next day for the Colosseum and they were GREAT and do a Vatican tour too. Even though we were rushed, we still got to see all the amazing things. Like the Sistine Chapel with it’s completely famous Michaelangelo paintings.

Altar in St. Peter's Basilica

Our tour ended in St. Peter’s Basilica where we had all the time we wanted to wander around. After studying the Reformation and Luther’s stance against this church, since it was the cause for all the indulgences, it was interesting to see what made those indulgences worth the scandal. Might not be worth the scandal, but the church was absolutely gorgeous. And full of history, obviously. And of course, outside the Vatican were all the colorfully, goofily (is that a word? It is now..) dressed Swiss guard.

If we had come back the next day at noon (Sunday) we could’ve seen the Pope! Which would’ve been awesome. But then again, there was so much more of Rome that we wanted to see, since we only had two days. Saturday night we saw the Pantheon and ate an Italian pasta dinner outside, then trekked to the Trevi fountain to see it at night and to the Colosseum to see it all lit up. Both were absolutely gorgeous.

Sarah and the Colosseum

So the first day was mostly our Vatican day, but Sunday was our ancient Roman history day. We started off with the Colosseum, which is where we found the Discover Rome tour which was great. We even learned that they probably didn’t throw the Christians to the lions, that that was only recorded way after the events. But the rest of the Colosseum was in no way a letdown.

After allowing us time to walk around the Colosseum ourselves, we met up with the tour group again for the second part, the Roman Forum. Which actually turned out to not be not through the Roman Forum, but rather through ancient palace ruins on top of the hill above the Roman Forum as well as information about the Forum. I had had no idea that all that cool stuff was there, I was just expecting a few columns and stuff from the Forum. Instead, we got to see the first “private entertainment system,” the emperor/king/whatever-he-was-called’s private battle arena. And Mussolini’s palace (which is now just a museum of artifacts, but still, the outside has his symbol and everything). And then we got to go out on our own to the Forum. And the Forum itself, like the courtyard, was just ruins of pillars, a few still standing. But surrounding it were old temples transformed into churches, and the first voting building, and practically the oldest street in the world. All of which fascinated me.

Roman Forum

Trevi fountain

After the tour, we got pasta again, saw the Trevi fountain again to make our wishes, and then headed to the Spanish steps. Which were kinda disappointing, not gonna lie. There were tons of people, like I expected, but they were literally just steps, no architecture or anything. But we can say we were there! Which is true of all of Rome now! Thing is, it never sank in while we were there that we were in Rome. It was very strange, because we had been looking forward to it for so long. And the pictures are amazing, and so we can look back on it and be amazed with ourselves for being there. Hopefully it’ll sink in soon! On the other hand, Venice was much better. So see the next blog for our adventures there!

Since the last time I posted, I haven’t really done much exciting traveling. I know, disappointing, but it’s only been a week or so.. But this gives me a chance to post about life in general in Reutlingen, what my average day-to-day activities are. As average as life gets here, anyway. Which isn’t that average. I mean, it’s Germany. And our professors always move classes around, so no two weeks have the same schedule. Makes things interesting.

So I guess I’ll talk about classes first. We have classes just with the other Valpo students and mostly with Valpo professors, which for this semester means there are five of us with one professor in a classroom. For all of our classes. Very different than at Valpo. We have five different classes: German language, German literature, Luther and Bach (all taught by Valpo professors), Art/Art History/Architecture (taught by a professor from another town close by), and International Economics, which also focuses on the region Reutlingen’s in and Germany and is taught by the man in charge of the international program at Reutlingen. So those five diverse classes make up our weeks, and all of them are actually pretty interesting. The only downside to these classes is that it’s just the five Valpo students in them, instead of many other programs which integrate the students into the university or at least into an international program with hundreds of other students.

Looking down from a hill onto part of Reutlingen

Instead of using classes to meet other students, we meet them most often in our dorm. These are different than dorms at Valpo. Here most rooms are singles, although I am one of the very few in a double room. Each floor in my dorm (so like 20 people) shares two toilets and two showers, one for guys and one for girls, and a kitchen/lounge area. This kitchen is where you actually meet the most people; since the cafeteria is only open for lunch, there’s always people in there cooking and watching tv or just sitting around talking. Cooking, by the way, is an adventure. Since, you know, everything’s in German. And since my German isn’t good enough to be able to read ingredients and stuff, I just make it up as I go. Problem is, I probably won’t be able to bring my newfound skills and recipes, if you call them that, to the U.S. because I won’t actually know what the ingredients are.. I just know what the bottles or packages look like! And they probably wouldn’t taste as good anyway, because Germans put much less preservatives and other junk in their food.

The best part of Reutlingen, though, is the nature, and I’ve been taking full advantage of that. There’s plenty of hills around to hike, a big outdoors sport complex with tons of fields to throw a frisbee or play some soccer on, and while out running I’ve found a big expanse of woods with trails and an absolutely beautiful nature park. And of course it’s even better now that fall is in full swing and the ground is covered with yellows, lime greens, and oranges.

One of the paths on campus yesterday

So that’s pretty much my life on a general day. And even though it does sound amazing (it is, let’s be serious), I really miss everyone back home. My best friend who’s in Athens studying abroad this semester, my boyfriend, my family, my frisbee team, and all of my other friends.. The whole experience has been a series of ups and downs, and I’ve broken down a few times because of the downs. It really is hard to be away from everyone you care about for months, and I’m only halfway through. At the same time, though, I’m already halfway through, and I feel like I’ve just started. And by the time I have everything figured out, it’ll be December and time to go home. So for these next couple of months, I’m concentrating on having the time of my life and learning more than I think possible and gaining a global perspective on things and becoming the person I want to be. And I’d say I have a pretty good start 🙂

What did the mommy tomato say to the baby tomato when he fell behind? …Ketchup! So since I haven’t posted in a while, I thought I’d play a little “ketchup” here. Like catch up, get it? I make myself laugh sometimes. So anyway. On a more serious note. Two weeks ago we left on a week-and-a-half-long adventure to Luther- and Bach-land for our Luther and Bach course. See, this is why studying abroad is amazing. Because “class” consists of traveling and seeing the stuff you read about in real life. It’s kinda awesome.

St. Thomas Church

Anyway, our first stop was Leipzig for the weekend. While there, we took a tour of the Stadtmitte (I’m gonna keep using this word in my posts. It’s literally “city middle,” and it means the old part of the city that’s now a pedestrian zone, usually with an old church or two, cobblestone streets and sidewalks, and lots and lots of outside restaurants and shops and pidgeons). So on this tour of Leipzig’s Stadtmitte, we got to see the churches that Bach worked at, and Goethe’s favorite restaurant, which hosted a legendary barrel ride by Faust (the person, before Goethe wrote about it), among other things. While in Leipzig, we also visited the Bach museum. The highlight of this part, however, was hearing the Thomanerchor (the young boy’s choir for the St. Thomas Church, where Bach did a lot of his stuff) sing the Bach cantata that we studied in class the week before. Pretty cool stuff.

In front of the 95-theses door!

Our next stop was Wittenberg, the famous Luther city. This was my favorite part of the trip, since I’m such a big Luther geek. But he’s awesome. Anyway, we took a tour of this city too. We got to see the Luther museum in the Luther house, which had THE LUTHER BIBLE. Like, THE ORIGINAL ONE THAT HE TRANSLATED. It was amazing. And then of course we got to see the church where he nailed the 95 theses to the door. Even though the door burned down in a fire, it was still the same place, still super cool. And we even got to see the church where he did his pastor work. The church is now considered the Mother of the Reformation. So yeah, Wittenberg was amazing. Especially for a Lutheran/Luther geek like me.

Wartburg Castle

The next day we stopped in Erfurt and took a tour of the city. (Yes, again. They did get a little old..) This one wasn’t too interesting. Although we did get to see the monastery where Luther spent some time. There were also some beautiful churches. And our guide pointed out where the Pope had stood only two weeks previously, which was kinda cool. But then the next day was cooler, in Eisenach. Yeah, we never stayed long in one place.. But anyway, Eisenach had Bach’s childhood home and a bunch of instruments of the time. And a great music room where you could sit and listen to Bach’s compositions for hours. This town also has Wartburg castle, which we visited in the afternoon. This is the castle where Luther spent ten months when he was hiding from the authorities who wanted to kill him. So we got to see his room where he translated the Bible. Which was also really cool.

But then we had a few days off until we had to be back in Reutlingen. So a few of us decided to head to southern Bavaria to see the Alps. They were incredible. And it was just beautiful. So I’m gonna attach a few pics.. It really was absolutely beautiful. And the town we were in, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, hosted the Winter Olympics not too long ago, so the ski jump and ice rink are still operating. We wanted to go skating in the olympic skating rink, but ran out of time.. Because we were on the highest peak in Germany!!! In a snowstorm 🙂 Which was actually a little sad, because apparently the view is absolutely incredible. But we could only see maybe 100 feet away. If that. But still, we were in a snowstorm. And then got to play on a glacier. Not bad for a day’s work.

Neuschwanstein

Snowstorm! And at the highest point!

View from our hostel... What??

On the way home on Saturday, we went to Neuschwanstein, the famous Cinderella castle. I had been here before, but was still amazed at how cool the inside and outside was. Surrounded by mountains and with a brilliant blue lake, but the inside had a grotto. (Literally, he had a cave installed in the castle. We called it his Batcave. Although Batman probably had a better car.) It’s hard to choose which one was better.

So we got back Saturday night to Reutlingen. And the next day we had Oktoberfest! Well, technically the Cannstatter Volksfest, since it’s not the one in Munich. But the one in Stuttgart is the second-biggest one, and apparently a lot less touristy. So, more authentic. And it was. Authentic, and amazing. Guys wearing lederhosen and those German dresses on girls. Complete with huge glasses of beer. One Mass = one liter of beer. And being part of the Reutlingen University group, we got two free Mass, and dinner. Pretty sweet deal. Germans are so uptight most of the time, that this is their one excuse to go crazy. And go crazy they do. Carnival rides (even roller coasters), massive beer tents (which aren’t tents really, but more like gigantic wooden structures they construct just for this event), cool market shops, and lots and lots of German sausages.

Awesome people.

One of the beer tents before people got there

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to for the past two weeks. That and “normal” class. Been pretty busy. Obviously. So I’ll write more soon!