...and that's a lot to know about Italy https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:59:36 GMT World Nomads Adventures https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3445/Italy/Cuando-in-Roma Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3445/Italy/Cuando-in-Roma#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3445/Italy/Cuando-in-Roma Wed, 23 May 2007 22:40:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3342/Germany/Munich Travel Germany wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3342/Germany/Munich#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3342/Germany/Munich Thu, 17 May 2007 19:34:00 GMT 0 week my parents came to visit! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3164/Italy/Gino-does-Italy Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3164/Italy/Gino-does-Italy#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/3164/Italy/Gino-does-Italy Mon, 7 May 2007 22:23:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2879/Spain/Barcelona Travel Spain wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2879/Spain/Barcelona#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2879/Spain/Barcelona Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:24:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2874/Italy/Boboli-Gardens-Florence Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2874/Italy/Boboli-Gardens-Florence#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2874/Italy/Boboli-Gardens-Florence Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:41:00 GMT 0 Hi Everyone, I have been so bad about updating this when it comes to writing about what I’ve been doing. So here is the catch up… The last three months have been ridiculous. I could never have imagined that I would be seeing all these places and doing all these things. I guess I’ll have to start back at Munich, which now seems like a really long time ago but it was only a little over a month ago. My friends Cate and Elsa and I went to Munich, Germany with Cate’s boyfriend and his friends that are studying in Florence through the Syracuse University program. Since then we’ve all been hanging out on a regular basis. We got on the bus with our travel group, Euro Adventures, at about 6PM and drove north to through Austria and the Alps into Bavaria. We arrived in Munich at about 4AM and crashed immediately as we got to our beds. The next day we had a surprisingly early start considering the lack of sleep we had gotten the night before and went straight to the center of town. Munich is a very modern city compared to anywhere I’ve been in Italy. This actually had been my first time out of Italy since I’d arrived in early January. Most of the city was bombed during World War II so a lot of the buildings were not the originals but had been rebuilt to look as they once were. After walking around for a while that morning we went to see the Glockenspiel (gosh I hope that’s how you spell that). After this Cate and I separated from the group and walked around the city center checking out shops and eating giant soft pretzels. Munich has amazing pastries, and we managed to eat at least one with each meal, hehe. As we ventured around we found one of the main beer gardens which was just around the corner from the town square. It had a market surrounding it and served Hofbrauhaus, Augustiner-Keller, and Lowenbraus beer at different stands in giant beer steins. After walking around the market we had our first beer in Germany. It was everything I would have expected, lots of people sitting around drinking and smoking enjoying the beautiful weather and good conversation. I am not quite sure how Germans drink such a large amount of such strong beer so early in the evening and not go straight to bed afterwards because Cate and I were dragging the rest of the evening until our late dinner at the Hofbrauhaus beer hall with the rest of the group. The Hofbrauhaus is everything and more that you would expect from a German beer hall. It was loud, crowded, and umpa-ing of polka music. I found out later from my Grandpa that he had actually played there with this band when they toured Europe and were there over Oktoberfest many years ago. I really felt like he and my Grandma were walking around Munich a lot of the time because this had been one of their favorite cities to visit. That night I tried authentic German cuisine and of course beer, lots and lots of beer. My friends and I drank enough that hey started swaying back and forth and singing along to songs we didn’t know with people we just met and the guys in our group even arm wrestled. The whole night was just hysterical and ended with my friend Marc marching and chanting “German People” in a thick Long Island accent with his beer stein in hand. The next day we walked around more of the city centre and decided to get lunch at the largest beer garden in Munich in the middle of its main park. The park happens to be the largest public city park in Europe which we found out after we walked a good fifty minutes to get to the beer garden. We enjoyed a few steins of beer and at a big lunch and ended up spending two hours hanging out and talking. That night we went to the Augstiner-Keller beer haus which is more popular among locals. The guy who was in charge of our trip had told us about the local club district in Munich so later that night we headed over to the club district which was like nothing I’ve ever seen in the states. It was an old warehouse district that had all been turned into dance clubs and bars. Each club was decorated on the outside to look more like a modern building but once you were inside they were very apparently old warehouses with flashing lights, techno music, and crazy dancing. For some reason I’ve heard a lot of George Michael music since being in Europe and Germans apparently like him a lot too. They also seem to be really big fans of Ace of Base. So my friends and I all danced along to “I Saw the Sign” and “Faith” and had an absolute blast. The next morning we were all exhausted and got on the tour bus early to head to Fussen, which is where Neuschwanstein Castle is located. It was built by King Ludwig and is what Disney’s Cinderella castle is based off of. This was one of things I really wanted to see while in Europe so I was very excited that we took the detour on the bus ride back to Florence. It sits right at the edge of the German Alps near Lichtenstein. While we were there it started raining and as we walked farther up to the castle it started snowing really hard. Although it was freezing, I really liked the weather while we were there since I missed winter in Minnesota and Wisconsin this year so it was surprisingly nice to have the snow and wind hit my face until my nose and ears froze. The castle itself was spectacular, but the view from a bridge that was farther into the foothills was my favorite part of the whole weekend. On one side we were able to watch a snowstorm come in and cover the Alps and on the other side was the castle with all the farm hills and villages below it. After getting some of the greatest pictures I’ve taken since I’ve been here I proceded to return back to Florence and put all my pictures on my iPod since I had run out of hard drive space. Unfortunately without my knowledge the files didn’t transfer correctly so once I deleted all my pictures off my computer I lost all pictures from this amazing trip to Germany and any others I hadn’t posted online prior to this trip as well. Since then I’ve learned my lesson and have backed everything up on CDs before removing them from my computer and have posted all my favorite pictures online. I’m going to try to get my friend Cate’s pictures since we took many of the same so that you can all see them. If you’d like to check out some of the pictures from our trip you can also go online to Euroadventures.com. It should be under the trip to Munich at the end of February this year. https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/4492/Germany/Munich Travel Germany wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/4492/Germany/Munich#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/4492/Germany/Munich Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:16:00 GMT 0 Spring Break https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2775/Malta/Malta Travel Malta wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2775/Malta/Malta#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2775/Malta/Malta Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:48:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2567/Italy/Rome-but-not-all-of-ityet Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2567/Italy/Rome-but-not-all-of-ityet#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2567/Italy/Rome-but-not-all-of-ityet Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:45:00 GMT 0 Dublin and Howth https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2330/Ireland/Weekend-in-Ireland Travel Ireland wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2330/Ireland/Weekend-in-Ireland#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2330/Ireland/Weekend-in-Ireland Thu, 8 Mar 2007 22:18:00 GMT 0 Wow, so I really thought after last weekend that life couldn’t get better, but since this is my life in Italy….apparently I have to reevaluate that statement every week, because my birthday weekend in Venice was a total blast! We arrived in Venice by train Friday and after checking into our trailer park hostel (no joke, I stayed in a trailer) my friends and I headed into the main island of Venice. Words cannot describe how beautiful it was, so take a look at the pictures and see for yourself. I have to admit, it was so perfect that it kind of felt like I was at Disney World and that it was all being staged at points. The gondola ride we took that night was one of those moments. The past few weeks in Italy have been Carnivale (Mardi Gras, euro style!) and the largest celebration is in Venice, so it was the perfect time to visit the city. There were celebrations all over the city during the day and large concerts in main piazzas at night. After a fun night out on Friday we returned to our trailors to find that our heat didn’t work but since it was so late there was no one at the front desk (more like front trailor) to solve our problem, so my friend Catie and I literally pulled our beds together and had to spoon for the night to stay warm in our many many layers of clothes that we put on. I can’t say that I’ve ever been that cold for that long before…it was pretty awful. The next morning we woke up to discover that the few blankets that we did have were also very prone to shedding, and since we slept with our coats on to stay warm we had white fuzz covering every inch of our black coats (this is common for me at home with dog hair, but not even Jake and Baker could have done this kind of damage!). So after finding out at the front desk that they had forgotten to give us the remote for the heater Catie and I walked around Venice on Saturday with fuzzy coats. On Saturday we walked around and got lost a few times, but found the Rialto Bridge, Piazza Margherita, and the island of Murano. We took a water taxi to Murano to see the local glass blowing workshops, it was really fun to get in a boat and be on the water and it was a neat way to see other parts of the city. For lunch we bought some bread and cheese and ate in Piazza Margherita. A gypsy came up to us for money and my friend Bri kept telling her no, so the gypsy touched Bri’s hair and said something that we didn’t understand (basically she cursed Bri), hehe. After Murano and lunch we continued to walk around and had dinner at a nice place with my friend Catie’s boyfriends friends, some of which I’ll be traveling to Munich with next weekend. From there on we wandered through the streets and celebrations until very late into the night to celebrate my 21st birthday….yada yada yada. We returned to Florence last night at 6PM safe and sound! It was a fantastic weekend! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3358/Italy/21st-in-Venice Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3358/Italy/21st-in-Venice#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3358/Italy/21st-in-Venice Tue, 20 Feb 2007 01:55:00 GMT 2 my 21st b-day!!! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2170/Italy/Birthday-Weekend-in-Venice Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2170/Italy/Birthday-Weekend-in-Venice#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2170/Italy/Birthday-Weekend-in-Venice Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:59:00 GMT 0 Sorry I haven’t written in a while. This past week with traveling and homework has been pretty busy. I was in the Naples area this past weekend visiting the ruins of Pompeii, the town of Vico Equense (on the Amalfi Coast), and the Palace of Caserta (Royal Palace of Naples). We had our first over night trip this past weekend so we left the bus station at 6:30AM and got to Pompeii in the early afternoon. It was a very long bus ride, so it was nice to spread our legs and walk through the ruins for the afternoon. Pompeii was something definitely worth seeing but I have to admit that after about two hours there, I was a little bored since everything kind of started to look the same. It was beautiful and a lot of fun playing with all the random puppies that wander through the ruins, but I was glad when we took the bus to our hotel in Vico Equense. It is a small town about 10km from Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast, and might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. We didn’t get to see much of the scenery that night but we did go to the pizza place my Italian teacher Francesca recommended that serves meter size pizza. Ten other girls and I managed to down two meters of pizza and still have desert! That night we were all too tired and full to go out, so we stayed in and it made checking out of the hotel at 8AM the next morning not so painful. Since the bus didn’t pick us up until 9:30, me and some of my friends decided to walk down to the beach, which was about a 10 minute steep hike down and a much longer painful hike back up, but it ended up being my favorite thing I’ve done in Italy so far. The Amalfi Coast is absolutely gorgeous! We trekked down the hill with the views of the Mediterranean, houses built out to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea, the island of Capri, and Mt. Vesuvius (volcano that erupted over Pompeii). It was also about 70 degrees out, sorry for all of you stuck in Minnesota or Wisconsin right now. It was beyond beautiful the water was so blue and the colors were just amazing. Italy is so full of color, I find myself taking pictures of random things just because I like the different color combinations (I’m such a graphic design geek!). Anyways, it was my favorite part of my trip so far. After my friends and I got yelled at for being late back to the bus (pictures were worth it though), we were off to the Palace of Caserta, which is where the royal family of Naples used to live when Naples was its own country. It was based off of Versailles and was huge, fittingly!!!! We spent a good amount of time inside, but it was impossible to see the 1,000+ rooms so we headed outside to the gardens which cover 22 square miles behind the palace. Me and some friends walked all the way to the end of the path that you can see in a few of the pictures, and then my camera battery died. It was about a mile and half walk up to the water fall that then goes half way up the hill behind the palace, and of course a mile and a half back. It was a beautiful day out so it was really nice to be in the sun and walking around so much. I cant believe people actually used to live there, it’s just unreal to me. After a few hours, which is not enough to visit this place, we hoped back on the bus for our 7 hour ride home on Sunday afternoon. This past weekend was lots of fun, but I’m excited to head to Venice this weekend for my birthday. My roommate Cassie from home will also be there and so will my friend Jen, so I couldn’t think of a better birthday present than to meet up with them while I’m here! Also, the weekend after that, my friend Catie and I are headed to Munich, Germany for a 3 night stay and after that in early April her and I and some of our friends are headed to Malta (island south of Sicily) for spring break. We were able to book on Ryanair during their 1cent flight day so we got extremely cheap flights to Malta for that week. Life is amazing here….I hope this finds you well. https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3355/Italy/Weekend-in-Pompeii Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3355/Italy/Weekend-in-Pompeii#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3355/Italy/Weekend-in-Pompeii Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2030/Italy/Top-of-the-Duomo-and-others Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2030/Italy/Top-of-the-Duomo-and-others#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/2030/Italy/Top-of-the-Duomo-and-others Wed, 7 Feb 2007 23:48:00 GMT 0 Ciao! Well this weekend was pretty low key compared to last weekend. It started out with going for my first run since I’ve been in Florence. I ran along the edge of the Arno River which is about 3 blocks from my apartment. I ran farther than I’ve ever walked in that direction so it was neat to see new scenery. Going for a run and staying in Florence for the weekend really helped to make it feel more like home, which I can admit has still not really happened. Nevertheless, its pretty cool to be able to call Florence my home for the next few months. On the 9th I will have been here for a month already… wow, time is flying by! This next weekend I’m off to Pompeii and Naples on a program overnight trip and then the weekend after that I’ll be in Venice during Carnivale, which is similar to Mardi Gras, over my 21st birthday! This last Thursday my roommate Katie and I and some friends climbed to the top of the Duomo which is Florence’s Cathedral. It is about 3 blocks north of our apartment and climbing to the top was quite an exercise but totally worth it. And don’t worry, we rewarded ourselves and cooled off with some gelato after the big climb! So check out the pictures from the view from the top of the Duomo and some other misc. from the weekend. https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3133/Italy/Running-through-Florence Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3133/Italy/Running-through-Florence#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3133/Italy/Running-through-Florence Wed, 7 Feb 2007 23:46:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1916/Italy/Siena-and-San-Gimignano Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1916/Italy/Siena-and-San-Gimignano#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1916/Italy/Siena-and-San-Gimignano Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:30:00 GMT 0 Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote. School has really started to pick up and I feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, or I guess hours with free internet access to keep up with everything. As you can probably see from my last pictures, a couple of my friends and I went to Pisa the other Friday. It was everything I’d hoped it would be, but I think that a lot of tourists ignore the rest of Pisa besides the leaning tower and the cathedral. The rest of the city which I saw from walking to and from the train is really beautiful. It is on the Arno so it has many beautiful river side views similar to Florence. This last Saturday I went on a day trip to Siena and San Gimignano. Siena was way more beautiful that I ever could have imagined. We went to Saint Catherine’s Cathedral and their duomo and then had lunch in the main piazza. Saint Catherine’s was very pretty, but we were not allowed to take any pictures inside, which was a big bummer because it had the most beautiful stained glass. It also to my surprise had the mummified head and finger of the actual Saint Catherine. It was kind of creapy to look at, but something to see since I learned that this is not so uncommon in European cathedrals. On a more appetizing note, I had the most amazing gelato in the main piazza. It was tiramisu with chocolate, and I ran into my friend Jen there because she was on a day trip with one of her classes. San Gimignano was also very beautiful, it has towers built all over the city because of old family feuding, apparently they used these towers to defend themselves. It was very pretty, but we only had about an hour to walk around and see the city. The way home was one of the best parts of the day because three of my friends and I had raced back to the bus to get the front seats of the second story of our double-decker bus. The front of the top of the bus was just a giant wrap around window so it felt like we were on a rollercoaster the whole way home, and with the way Italians drive on their narrow little streets, it was a crazy ride! This past Sunday my roommate and I attempted to go to the Florentine’s soccer game which is about a 40 minute walk from our apartment. We took a bus there with a bunch of other students but weren’t able to get tickets so we ended up having to walk all the way home, which would have been a long walk if we knew how to get home but since we didn’t, we ended up getting lost for about 2 hours but found this awesome little flee market on the way home. It had these old Italian magazine advertisements for anything you could think of, I especially liked the retro Italian Volkswagen ads. I think I might have to go back and get a few another day. Hopefully, Katie and I will be able to get tickets to the next game, we just didn’t order them in advance so we knew it was long shot, but I hope to go to a few of the Florentine games while I’m here. Oh, I almost forgot…some of my most exciting news! This past week I went to an international students night at a discoteca with a bunch of people from my program and I won 2 for 1 tickets for paragliding in Interlaken, Switzerland!!! So I guess I’ll be making my way to the Alps soon! As Julie, Rhonda, and Troy would say, it is definitely “The Year of the Europe” !!!! Hey Julie and Rhonda, any news about “The Year of the Salad” and you two coming to visit me? Well that is all for now, I will hopefully have more to tell you after this week. Cassie, my roommate from Minnesota is arriving in Rome today to start her semester here in Italy, so I’m super excited to see her and Rome in the next few weeks! Ciao! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3004/Italy/Pisa-Siena-and-San-Gimignano Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3004/Italy/Pisa-Siena-and-San-Gimignano#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/3004/Italy/Pisa-Siena-and-San-Gimignano Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:27:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1832/Italy/Pistoia-Pisa-and-Weekend-with-Jen Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1832/Italy/Pistoia-Pisa-and-Weekend-with-Jen#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1832/Italy/Pistoia-Pisa-and-Weekend-with-Jen Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:02:00 GMT 0 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1759/Italy/Florence-and-orientation Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1759/Italy/Florence-and-orientation#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/photos/1759/Italy/Florence-and-orientation Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:55:00 GMT 0 Sorry to cut it so short last time, I haven’t really been able to tell you all about my time in Florence yet, so now that my orientation is over I have time to sit down and tell you about it. The last few days have been unbelievable. I’ve had a fun time exploring the city I’ll be calling home for the next five months. It is so beautiful, I don’t know how Italians walk around without looking around in aww all the time. I live right in the center of the city between the Duomo, Piazza Republica, and the Palazzo Vecchio, which is where the replica of Michelangelo’s David is. I walk past this replica on my way to school everyday and then past the Uffizi Gallery which holds many famous pieces such as “The Birth of Venus”. I’m in artist heaven!!!!! Not only is the city beautiful but the people are, they are the friendliest and most helpful people. Since Florence is rather international and has many students studying in it, most people speak some English, which has helped a lot, but I’m looking forward to taking Italian and being able to speak more than the few phrases I’ve picked up so far. The other students in my program are a lot of fun and my flat mates are really nice girls. My roommate Ayami is from Japan, and has been here for a semester already so she’s been extremely helpful in showing me and my other roommates the ropes around the city. Our apartment is way nicer than I expected it to be. Two nights ago me and two of my roommates went to a Discoteca near the Piazza Republica, which is about 4 blocks from our apartment. It was a total blast, but I have to admit that on the street and in the club, I felt like a total hobo compared to the Italians and how they dress. For the first time here so far, we were at a place at night where we didn’t see any other American students, which seems to be hard to get away from here. I just got back from my orientation at a vineyard in the Tuscan hills. The estate that we stayed at is over 1,000 years old and once was owned by the Grand Duke of Florence, back in the middle ages. Today it is a castle/winery. The country side is like everything else I’ve seen so far here, unbelievable! This morning my roommate Lindsay and I got up to watch the sunrise and walked down the road from our villa to an old church at the top of the hill to get a better view. I can’t even explain how gorgeous the colors are, it is definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, but I’m sure I’m going to have many more of those moments while here in Italy. I am really glad to be here, but I do have to say that culture shock hit me much quicker than I thought it would. I’ve been having an amazing time in the few days that I’ve been here and I already feel like I’ve seen a lot, but it has crossed my mind that I’m here for five months, which is both exciting and terrifying all a the same time. Not being able to hop online or call whenever I want to check up on things back home is going to take some getting used to. Well I hope that this finds you well whether you’re back home or studying abroad as well!!! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2676/Italy/In-Florence-and-orientation Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2676/Italy/In-Florence-and-orientation#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2676/Italy/In-Florence-and-orientation Sun, 14 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT 1 Ciao!! I am on the top floor of my school right now looking out the window at the Tuscan hills, Firenze is bellisima. I cant believe I'm actually here! The past two days have been a lot of fun, and very busy. The flight here was surprisingly fun. I sat next to a German guy from Hanover and a girl from Oregon who were very helpful in letting me know the must sees in Germany and the other European countries they had visited. My first day here was exhausting, I did the wrong thing and took a nap when I got to my apartment, which by the way, is ridiculous! Its huge, and not freezing like everyone elses apartments that I've talked to.... woops gotta go, orientation is starting, I'll write again soon! https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2624/Italy/at-school Travel Italy wini0017 https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2624/Italy/at-school#comments https://journals.worldnomads.com/wini0017/story/2624/Italy/at-school Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:15:00 GMT 0