Back to the Clouds! No Literally this time!

FEELING BETTER!

So Where did i leave off? Going to bed in Venice, ah. I woke up feeling much better! Not entirely, but noticeably better. Thank goodness to a hefty dose of Vitamin C and 12 hours of sleep!

Yesterday we climbed on our trusty bus and headed for Verona. The countryside was amazing alone,  we went over the top on the tourist label by continuing to take pictures outside our bus windows, but we honestly couldn't help it. It just all looks like an opening scene to a movie...Villas, farms, horses...vineyards, just everything is surreal. Truly.

Pulling into Verona, I was uuber excited. I was feeling better, had a camera battery (2!) and was set for our 3 hour excursion. We went on a mini sightseeing tour- Again, I was doing a bad job at listening being that I was taking pictures. i really have to follow through on my personal promise to read up on everything I am seeing so that I can appreciate it even more. We ended our mini tour in Juliet's house- the tourist attraction I was most excited to see.

It was alright. I guess I thought it would be like it is in the recent "Letters to Juliet" movie? It looks drastically different in real life, is extremely overcrowded, and has a huge tourist blackhole shop right in the same courtyard. I wanted to get some sort of souvenier that said "Julie" or "Juliet" since that is my name, and also Juliet's name, but no such luck. I got a picture with the statue of Juliet for good luck and long lasting love, I sure need that! ;)  But I really wanted to write a letter to Juliet like in the movie. I thought that was real :(  I had a whole thing in my head ready for how I was going to explain the heartbreak turmoil constantly racing through my head. But, in my head it stays I suppose. I guess the good news is that it isn't drastically different from the movie in the letters to juliet terms--you can write a simple message to Juliet, or whomever I guess, on the surrounding entrance gate walls. Millions and millions and millions of people have written messages, so many that it starts to just look like a big blotch of ink with messages continuously written on top! But still cool.

Juliet's Balcony

Some messages to Juliet written on the wall, and just statements of love (i.e. Initials, hearts, etc).

Just crazy filled with message over message...just lots of ink!

There were actually messages written out on these little hearts, to Juliet, and they were just left on the street to float away to meet the grime and sorrow of the public. I hope they find a home.

Being that I took so drastically long to stare at Juliet's wall, hoping something would happen, I found myself alone for lunch. But no worries--I headed to the main square marketplace where apparantly fruit is the main attraction! Perfect!! I bought a giant cup of FRUIT for only 2 Euro, could life be better? I sat on a goregous fountain again (Italy likes fountains) with lots of others, and enjoyed a delightful fruit cup in the sun. I then walked around, avoided tourists, shopped around a bit....I then got my last italian Gelato (SO YUMMY! I can't believe America is stuck with Ritas. I will never look at Ritas the same after dying in heaven with Italian Gelato). 

After that my friends and I met up and being that they are normal college girls, they wanted to shop (like....clothes shop) so I went with them despite the fact that I usually have to ask my sister if something is a shirt, skirt or dress. The shops we went in were insane, as expected. Adorable and amazing clothes, obviously, but each sold for no less than 98 Euro, crazy.

Overall, I really liked Verona! It was sweet, cute and kind. Nice people. Gorgeous architecture. Exquisite detail to the city. And, yay for TONS of fruit! Its a good life.

Then....another six hours on the bus. Besides hilarious happenings, chatting and getting to know each other better, playing games on iphones, listening to great music, and lots of sleeping, the bus ride really is uneventful and there is nothing else to share about our bus happenings.


Our arrival in Switzerland is amazing! We are back to the language of the German (Well, Swiss-German), where I am again as lost as a monkey in a supermarket. Our hotel is wonderful, and is is so chilly here! Which I like. I would rather be chilly any day than sweating. Perfect hoodie weather, eh? 

Anyway, last night was spent updating ya'll on this blog and facebook, and calling home to many loved ones. Note: To all those I promised a postcard, they will not be arriving until I get home. Its kind of a long complicated story that basically revolves around the fact that I am an idiot. But, they are already written out as I go, they will only just be arriving late is all.

Today we hit up the town of Lucerne, Switzerland! I think everyone was bummed because we have collided into our first bout of extremely unpleasant weather. Rainy, windy, very cold, etc. I think we were all really looking forward to Switzerland for its known beauty but unfortunately Switzerland could only show us rain clouds this trip. It was still pretty, though. And as the old photography saying goes (Actually its not a saying) : No fear if its raining, you'll get a more unique picture! I learned this somewhere when I was first starting the photography shebang, as a young teenager on a photoshoot thing with my dad I think. It was pouring rain and our photography director taught us that even though it sucks that it is raining on your big day to whatever you are photographing, you are one of few that will have a unique picture because of that, so make the best of it! So I got some really nice rain shots of the town of Lucerne. No complaints.


Some Rain shots:

After that was our optional excursion to Mt. Pilatus- one of the highest mountains in the swiss Alps! Crazy cool! We got to take a 90 minute ferry ride to the base of the mountain, where a train takes you up to the top of the mountain. Everyone thought the train was hilarious until we reached 2,000 m up, when people were starting to get nervous. It was not a slow train and it was about a 30 minute ride up!

The beginning of the train...

Taken from inside the train...Gettin' high!

Tunnel ahead! Oh boy.

Lookin' Down!

Gettin' into the clouds.....

Pure CLOUD outside. Crazy.

AND WE SAW SNOW! My tour guide said she was not expecting there to be snow, so it was a rare thing that we got to see snow. Not very much snow, but snow all the same. Also, we passed the elevation of the clouds and our windows were open, so clouds sort of just came through and were in the midst of our personal train car, it was so cool. I got some SWEET shots of the clouds and the mountains, even if that was all we could see.

At the top of the mountain, it was a mix of rain and snow and literally so many clouds it was hard to see your hand in front of you. But being that we are stubborn and persistent college students that are for the most part healthy, strong and athletic, we totally went on a miniature hiking tour to the VERY top of the mountain. I forgot to look at the exact elevation but I'm pretty sure it was pretty crazy. My hair was soaking wet due to the moisture in the air, but breathing in that fresh mountain air was like no air I have ever breathed before. Just exquisite. We got some cute pictures at the very top, even though all that you can see behind me is white abyss. Still cool, though. It helped our afraid-of-heights- people not realize how high up we were. Then me and and another friend opted to continue on a more crazy hiking tour and it was a lot like cave exploring on an unbeaten path down the other side of the mountain! We went down as far as we felt like, and then came back up and took a chairlift thingy down the other side. Pretty rockin awesome is what I say!

Tonight is all about rest....tomorrow we have a 5:30 am departure to catch our train to Paris! Ouch! It will be a long day. We arrive in Paris by train around 1, then have a sightseeing tour, a cruise around Paris, and then reservations to go up the Eiffel Tower. :-)

I can't wait to start drawing and painting some of my photography shots I'm getting! I have so many ideas. I also have FULL intentions on making a book of all my Europe photography. SO FAR, I have exactly 731 shots, and thats not counting Venice being on the iphone, and I also still have Paris and London to go. And, I will go full out crazy monkey beans when I am in London. I will photograph like I have never photographed a city before. London won't know what hit it after I'm gone! So I plan to be coming home with at least ~1200 pictures. After that I want to weed through, edit, and then select which ones to put in the book in chronological order. Then this book, will be something I can easily show friends, coworkers, etc or anyone that wants to see. Yay!

Apparantly I am known as the "photographer" of the trip. A girl that I bumped into on the tour yesterday, whom I only just learned her name, said to me, "Are you the girl thats getting all the crazy good pictures? I saw you taking pictures before and I thought- I have to get her name So I can see them later!" I just sort of stared at her, and I was like, "Is that really going around?? " I thought it was funny. My close group of friends likes to look through my pictures so this is good because it reminds me to delete the bad ones as I go, so they don't see all the "attempt" shots. I think it is perfectly acceptable for even a professional photographer to have to try 2-3 times to finally get or pick the perfect shot. And then there are times (and everyone laughs at me for this) that I literally don't look at anything on the camera, and literally just point and shoot and hope for the best, if I see something but am moving too fast to safely stop and capture. Sometimes those photos come out the BEST. While travelling, I have learned one very thing about photography: Sometimes you have literally five seconds. You see something with your eye and you can't think about it. You turn your camera on if its not already, get the lens cap out of the way, bring it up to your eye, find your subject, zoom in/out and click- all within five whole seconds- otherwise you miss it. I am certainly not one to sit there playing with "What effect should I choose? what should the lighting be? Let me wait for that person to move first..."   no. Just, shoot. Take the picture. Otherwise you miss it. After you get that first golden shot, then you can experiment and try taking it again but slower if the moment is still happening.

Even with perfecting that point and shoot speed, I even miss a lot too. Sometimes you can only just see things with your eyes and remember them, and thats OK too. Otherwise you'd be walking down the streets with your eye in a viewfinder, and thats not exactly safe or wise. Other times its just really not appropriate to take a picture, as much as you really, really, really, really want to. Especially when it comes to people. Also, many europeans in big cities, will dress up so that you will take a picture, and then they want a Euro! So, funny.

Anyway, enough about pictures. Is this blog getting to be long enough? Shabam, I thought this would be a short one!

One more really important delight  I want to share with you and then I will let you resume on your imporant daily activities:

 I FINALLY found the PERFECT postsecret postcard I plan to use to send in the secret I have been rewriting in my head, over and over, just waiting for it to be OK to let go of it and send it. I promised myself that I would find myself the perfect European postcard to perfectly fit my secret, and I did today. Of course, I can't tell you what it looks like or what the secret is, because thats a secret,and it might end up on the website! ;) But I found one and that makes my day SO happy!


Anyway, I think thats it for today. Not sure when I'll be in wifi coverage again, being that tomorrow Is Paris, and who knows with Paris. Even if we do have wifi, we will be out late on our cruise and chances that I am going to sign on and update is slim, but we'll see! We shall just see.

Thank you for reading everyone, It really means so much! The blog stats went crazy high yesterday with the four posts on at once- and its all thanks to you guys!

Miss you!

~ A Writer in a Nurse's Body

Finally, I can speak!

Wow…still no wifi!! Not sure yet If I’m going to post all of these at the same time or give you time to read each one a day apart…hmm. I *paid* for internet yesterday in an Italian computer café (weird) just so I could log onto Facebook and let people know I was alive, but other than that….nada.

So, INNSBRUCK WAS AMAZING!!!! First of all, DRIVING through on the way to Innsbruck was phenomenal, we were all on the one side of the bus taking pictures through the windows because just the view was fascinating. We have (or at least most of us) have seen snow before, lots of times. But there is just something jaw-dropping as seeing snow covered Mountain Alps. In May.  These mountains are just so..powerful, so alive. They speak to us as we drive through, tell us stories about nature. But it gets better.

Innsbruck, the town we stopped in for a couple hours to have lunch, was right next to this gorgeous mountain range. We ate lunch outside (it was PERFECT weather) and from my lunch table, I could see the whole town of Innsbruck and the magnificent mountain range encasing the whole town in the back. I can’t even really describe it. As soon as I am able to show pictures, I will input pictures into these blogs. But honestly I don’t even think a picture would describe it enough. Just the air to breathe was fresh, invigorating. Enlightening.

Our exact restaurant for lunch....I sat under one of those umbrellas. Perfection!

View from sitting down...

Sitting there, It felt like I was in a scene of the movie “Inception”. Particuarly thinking of the lunch scene where Leo takes Ellen to the dreamworld, and they are in some (probably European) city having lunch. Everyone in the background is just so happy, cheerful, there is a serene atmostphere that you can tell is just not real. That’s how lunch in Innsbruck felt. I felt like if I could create my own dreamworld, this would be it. I was waiting for someone to wake me up and I’d still be in Munich.

But unfortunately we had to get (practically dragged) back onto the bus and we were all still taking pictures like crazy through the windows- we couldn’t get enough.

Then, we set on our way to Italy. Just the thought of it made me so excited- I was jumping around inside my heart because I couldn’t wait to SEE Italy. I mean all the countries so far have been AMAZING, but Italy was second on my list on “Must see” right after London. So, it was exciting. Crossing the border alone was fascinating, we saw people parachuting off the Alps, as high as the clouds. My tour guide announces, “To the right you can see people bungee jumping off the bridge we will be travelling over”.  It was just all too surreal.

Lol. Nothing but italian vineyards!

Just one of 82,239,293,222 castles we passed. It began to become a "Normal" thing.

ITALY!

At last we pulled into our Italian hotel. What an experience!

We didn’t actually stay in Venice, but a hotel about a 20 minute ferry ride away from Venice, and a 2 hour drive. Our tour guide “prepped” us for the hotel experience we were about to have and this is what we got:

“These hotels were all mostly built in the 80s. Everything is much smaller, much less space than what you are all used to. The shower is in a wet room- meaning you leave your clothes outside and the shower is not in its own stall- No, In fact its right above the toilet. You sit on the toilet and, well, you know. Just shower. And the whole bathroom gets wet and drains through a hole in the floor. No elevators, no internet, no air conditioning. And oh- Italy has a known “Spiderman” who mostly spends time in Venice, but has been known to make his (or their) presence known in our island. What this guy (or group) does is literally climb walls (with tools?) and can climb into hotel balconies and enter your room and loot whatever they can. Meaning, don’t leave your balcony door open for extra air at night.” She also warned us that Venice, our destrination for the whole next day, was the place we had to be careful of pickpockets the most, in all our cities so far and to be yet. Pickpockets are getting more and more skilled and creative and even somebody that just bumps into you may be able to snatch something. And obviously, they head right for the tourists who are so awestruck and taking pictures, that they aren’t religiously watching their belongings.

So with all that exciting news, the bus was generally pretty upset, lots of moans and groans. However, all I could think was, We can live for two nights with these new changes. We are acting so…American. So although the amenities weren’t top notch, I was excited for the experience of being in a hotel…in Italy. And it certainly was an experience! I don’t have much else to say about the hotel, beause all of what she warned us about was true. It was very small, but still pretty cool. Regardless of everything, we were in ITALY!!

After check in, we went to dinner, the beach and shopping on our island.

Dinner was….amazing. I kept changing my mind over whether or not to get Italian food, that I missed so much. Everyone else was getting pizza, and I wanted it so badly. I saw a chicken meal on the menu that I would have been alright eating with no risks, but I wanted the pizza so much I was willing to take a risk. I thought, maybe since its real Italian food it won’t cause me to be as nauseous? Real Italian pizza. I thought, even if it causes me hell, I can now say I ate pizza in Italy. I took 5 lactaids (probably overkill but better safe than sorry).  After dinner I felt alright! Woo, I made it through! I took a couple bites of the real pizza but then also ate most of it without the cheese by scraping it off.

Then I locked myself in the bathroom. Which, had nothing whatsoever to do with being sick, but it was JUST as embarrassing. Other girls that visited the bathroom told us that they locked themselves in, but I figured it couldn’t be THAT hard. Well, it was. I officially hate all Italian doors. The lock was the type where you literally lock the door after you, with an actual key. And then spin it back to unlock it. Well, I have trouble with keys. I don’t even really like using keys in America, but at least I can. But this key/lock and I were not exactly getting along. I tried everything, but to no avail. I started panicking, thoughts starting getting less logical and it was going on ten minutes. I couldn’t believe that I actually managed to lock myself in an Italian bathroom and I HAD THE KEY. Eventually, I heard someone on the outside, speaking in Italian. I told him in Spanish that I spoke English, and I didn’t have to tell him I was locked in because I’m pretty sure he got that much just by the fact that I was constantly trying to open the lock. He kept giving simple (Italian) directions and due to the fact that I couldn’t think clearly, I wasn’t getting any of it. I kept trying different combinations of letting go, pushing, pulling, twisting, turning, spinning, jumping, praying, but nothing worked. Finally I heard a woman voice say, “I get key!” So she left and I kept playing with it. AND I GOT IT. WTF. She finally gets her key and then I finally get it on my own. Figures. They seriously need directions on that door. Then she came back with my key, and I’m all there like a silly American with a stupid sheepish sorry look on my face, washing her hands and all I could say was ‘Lo siento” in Spanish. And Thank you. From then on I decided not to take on ANY more Italian doors (despite the fact that I ALSO locked myself in my hotel bathroom door but it turned out to just be  a button you had to press in).

After dinner, we went to the BEACH! WE WERE ON A BEACH IN ITALY! A BEACH! The sand was PERFECT, it was the softest sand I had ever EVER walked on, and the water was so much warmer than it is this time in New York. I personally didn’t go swimming due to my fear of the ocean, but it was an experience all the same. I got some GREAT pictures of the beach during sunset time.

Shopping after that was interesting. The shopping streets after 9 turn into pedestrian only streets and even around 11, the streets were packed with families, babies, kids, elderly, tourists, all sorts of people shopping. All kinds of lively shops, too. Marts, expensive clothing, shoes, not expensive clothing, souveniers, etc. I have absolutely no fashion sense at all, but it was fun looking at all the Italian clothes that were all high fashion, and dreaming about one day having enough money to be able to walk down an Italian street and just buy shoes I thought were nice, or a gorgeous shirt, “just because” rather than sticking automatically to the clearance rack. All of the girls on this trip are all very….stylin’. Even just down to their flip flops, they have the most intricate and pretty flip flops, and I have Adidas. But, Adidas are comfy and I don’t have any blisters, so woo!

Back at the hotel, I started to immediately regret trying the pizza. All of the sudden I was standing there and it just all set in at once. But it wasn’t the dairy, that was covered I was pretty sure, with 5 lactaid. It was the tomatoes, which I can’t do anything about. Except regret. I took all my anti-nausea medicines and prayed to at least get some sleep through the impending serious doom. Despite having a lot more to do before lights out- all I could do was lay still on my bed without moving a muscle. If I did move a muscle, I probably would have not have had any friends any more due to showing them the pizza I ate earlier on a floor I’m sure.

Aside from all that negative news, I do have something positive to end with:

I AM SO HAPPY TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE IN A COUNTRY. IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE. I never thought that four years of Spanish ever paid off. I mean, I speak it *sometimes* at work, but only minimally. But I couldn’t believe how much was all flooding back when I needed it most, in Italy. Granted, they don’t speak Spanish, they speak Italian, but I figured they were all more likely to understand Spanish than English. And I was right. Through all my funny attempts to communicate in Spanish, they all understood very well. It was amazing. Even just knowing the basic grammar and how Spanish is supposed to work, and some basic vocabulary is enough to get by. And words I thought I forgot, suddenly came back. I was literally pulling them from the back of my mind, as it took a couple seconds to remember. So cool! I feel like I could get by in Spain or Italy, or Mexico. My only weakness is not being able to understand what everyone else is speaking. It just is too fast for me and too much slang and no clear articulation, and its hard to remember the whole sentence someone just said and then piece together what you know in your mind. I can read Spanish well, speak enough to get by, and write enough, but not listen. So I need to work on that.

Well, tomorrow is a jam packed full day in Venice, Italy!! So exciting :D  Goodnight!

~A Writer in a Nurse’s Body