Avventure Nella Solitudine

Disneyland Paris

2009-03-15T01:02:00.005+01:00

Saturday: I woke up around 9:30am, showered and got ready for a long, exciting day and made my way to the Gare de L'Est metro station to decipher my way to The Park. There were two line-switches (I have no idea what they're called, clearly I don't use public transportation often) to get to the train that would take me 35 minutes outside of Paris, to Marne-la-Vallée.

It was really pretty easy, and when I wasn't sure which way the approaching train (which is really still a subway, I guess it just goes faster) was going, I simply followed this French gangster boy, who just happened to drop a his Disneyland name-tag on the ground at the train station.

Then I proceeded to take pictures of him without his knowledge and post them on the internet.

The Park was the last stop on the train, then I ran out and bought a park hopper ticket. I didn't have my Blue Main Gate Pass, but they gave me a pretty decent discount because I had my Cast ID. I headed into Disneyland Park first, of course.

Sleeping Beauty Castle, or Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant

Under the castle to the left is a cave with a dragon (!!) in it! It can move its head, wings and tail around as he blinks and roars (or do dragons growl?) and blows smoke. Even his fingers drum the edge of the rocks in the water. It's fucking awesome.

For the Tabacchi

2009-03-11T03:36:00.006+01:00

I am on the hunt for cigarellos or tiparillos or some sort of flavored tobacco mini-cigar. I've only tried a cigarette once, and even then I left it to Harry to finish. I seem to be a fan of rum-soaked cigars, are little versions of those made? Of all places, surely one can find something good to smoke in Italy.

A Weekend in Paris!

2009-03-05T22:35:00.009+01:00

Let me begin by saying that for whatever reason, I've never really harbored much of an interest in France. No, I wasn't on that "patriotic" anti-French bullshit bandwagon, I truthfully have no idea why. I know a fair amount of relevant history, I find the language intoxicating and I've always been impressed by the amount of incredibly famous art that resides within its borders. I suppose I had never really foreseen the chance to visit, and therefore hadn't let any of these things really soak completely through.

And now... I couldn't be more enamored. I am completely smitten with the city of Paris, and can only hope to return and see more of the country (and in much better company).

My short weekend there went like this:
Arrival/Thursday Night: Laruen, Julie, Mikaela and I got into Beauvis airport around 11:00pm and took a bus into the city. Thanks to Laura & Chelsea's crash course in crucial French phrases, I was able to get us a taxi to our hotel, where we ended up around what must've been close to 1:30am.

The hotel was incredible and ended up being much cheaper than a hostel would have been. For three nights in a quadruple room, we each paid a total of €59.60. (Hostels were about €30/night.) There was marble bathroom, an incredible balcony and a view that begged for a half naked Ewan MacGreggor.

View from the balcony towards the Gare de l'Est train/metro station.

Friday: Despite our intentions to wake up early and see as much as possible, no one really woke up until 11:00am. We got out of the hotel and navigated our way to The Musée du Louvre by way of the metro system. (Which is totally exhilarating, it's like a big scavenger hunt. Italy needs to dig up some of it's ancient junk and jump on the public transportation train.)

The entry point/main courtyard of the Louvre, taken from the inside.

We got to the Louvre around 1:00pm. I wasn't about to try to explain the significance of any of this art to my insufferable roommates (yes, the view is fantastic from this high horse), so I told them I would meet them back under the glass pyramid at 4:00pm.

I was concerned about not being able to see everything, and while I absolutely didn't, I ran around to all of the highlights and had a fantastic time just wondering through the massive galleries. Among some of the phenomenal and incredibly famous art, my favorites were:

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Aphrodite of Milos (better known as the Venus de Milo)

The Mona Lisa

Around 3:45pm I started heading back to the pyramid, thinking the other girls had surely finished early as well, and might be anxious to move on to another attraction. They came back down the escalator right at 4:00pm, they had left and gone shopping on the back part of the Champs-Élysées, where we returned and I found a couple of shirts, a purse and a great white jacket. Hey, you have to shop in Paris, it's Paris.

That night we meant to go out for a fancy dinner, but we're sort of used to the outrageously late Italian dinner times and just ended up at a little cafe across the street from our hotel, as most other options were closed or the girls didn't see anything they liked on the menu.

I was really hoping to find some French Onion Soup, but was fine with pizza for the night (because I'm not getting enough of it in Florence). The girls were getting kind of catty, Julie really didn't like the pasta dish she ordered and wouldn't stop complaining about it, I think everyone was just exhausted. When the waiter brought out the pizzas for Mikaela and me, he told me mine was in the shape of a heart because, "The Chef, he love you," as the chef grinned and waved from the kitchen.

The girls wanted to go out, but I decided to call it a night as I was planning to get up early and head to Disneyland Paris for the day!

This Will Only Happen Once

2009-03-04T18:02:00.000+01:00

I'm going to write one post where I bitch about my roommates and then I'm going to get over it.

Not knowing anyone from Chapman in the first place, I decided to take a chance with Athena's housing and see who I'd end up with. I met Chelsea that way when I first started college, and she's pretty legitimate (love you) so it seemed like a valid way to go.

My three roommates are from the East Coast. Lauren and Mikaela are from the Boston area of Massachusetts (Norwell, precisely) and Julie is from New Hampshire. Lauren and Mikaela grew up and went to high school together and Julie is Lauren's best friend from college. They attend Endicott for Elementary Education while Mikaela attends University of Massachusetts for Communications.

To preface:

It's incredible to study abroad. It's got to be that much more amazing to have your two closest friends right there with you. My objective in leaving my friends, family and familiar university (and what I think most people's objective must be in studying abroad) is to expand my horizons and become a more open, understanding global citizen. I want to travel to as many different places as I can and see what other people's lives are like. I plan to see all my favorite pieces of art in person. I want to know the history of national monuments, I'm curious about local cuisines. Deciphering a foreign city's subway/metro system is exhilarating, and putting the seemingly mundane (or even unknown) day-to-day skills I had developed in America to use in a completely unfamiliar place is incredible.

I never knew I could navigate so well or had such a keen sense of direction. I didn't know any French but thanks to a long weekend in Paris, I feel like I can go back and get around pretty comfortably. (My Italian is strangely slower in making any sort of useful headway.)

But these girls are here to "meet [their] future husbands" and "make a list of all the countries [they] hook up with."

They spend a serious amount of their day planning out what they're going to eat and when they actually consume, they can't stop talking about how fat they are/are becoming/will be when they return home. Conversation which is immediately followed by how Italian food is disgusting because it's all carbohydrates and lengthy discussion about what American foods they can't live without any longer. Then they'll drink four boxes of €0.69 white wine and go out clubbing until 4:00am.

They've each brought men home, though they squeal about how "disgusting" they find Italians. (To really cinch this, they guys that they hang out/hook up with are not, in fact, Italian. They're very clearly Armenian. [Which is great, whatever, just don't tell people you're something you're not in order to get laid.] There are a lot of men that will tell American students that they're Italian, the police force actually warned the girls at the university about this.)

I've gone out with them twice. At the clubs, they see girls getting free drinks from the bartenders and will whine, "I'm prettier than her, why am I not getting drinks for free?" Their goal for the evening is to not pay for a drink, whether they're given freely from the bar or bought for them by creepers.

Writing all this out just seems petty, and honestly it is, but it's really been stressing me out. I'll give it one more example and then I'm going to bed.

I went to Paris, France with all of the roommates last weekend. I was thrilled to go and started doing a little bit of research about the things I wanted to go see and do. I ended up finding a great deal for a hotel, a quadruple bedroom for three nights that would only cost each of us €59.40. (This was an amazing deal because hostels can run from €15-30 a night.) The room was impeccable. It was a corner with a perfect balcony, great view, comfortable single beds, a TV, and a marble bathroom. It was fucking awesome. These stupid girls (mostly Julie, as she really is the downer of the group) were just not having it. Julie can always, always find something to complain about. I kindly invited her to find a personal marble bathroom in any hostel across Europe and promptly made plans to head to Disneyland Paris the next day, by myself.

I had been Facebook messaging with Chelsea and Laura, who have both studied in France, for some general suggestions of things to do and any key phrases that might help me out with the language barrier. I was very obviously the only person who had even considered the slight dilemma of not speaking the local language, and Laura's "Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas français, parlez-vous anglais?" (I'm sorry, I don't speak French, do you speak English?) as well as Chelsea's helpful phrases saved us (and kept me from looking like less of an American douchebag) on sereral counts.

One Month Today

2009-02-25T23:12:00.000+01:00

I've been living and studying in Florence, Italy for one month today.

It's been interesting, challenging, beautiful and inspiring.

More than anything I've learned here, I have come to a very acute realization of how much the people in my life mean to me, why they're such staples in my life, and why they've been there for so long.

I came to Europe alone. I didn't know anyone from Chapman or anywhere else that would be studying here - or anywhere else in Europe, for that matter. The three other girls living in my apartment all know each other from school and growing up together. It's become very clear that the incredible majority of students here have 'come with' someone else, whether it be a classmate or best friend, everyone seems to come with their niches pre-formed. It's a little bit rough for someone traveling alone, but I'm working on it.

I've been on two field trips with my university, Lorenzo de' Medici. The first was to Rome, where I met Kat, a girl from Chapman who I'd noticed was on my plane from Los Angeles to Frankfurt. When I told her that I had seen her on the plane, she asked me if I had seen the "crazy hot Welsh boy" who was also on the flight. When I affirmed, she burst, "We totally went at it in one of the Frankfurt Airport bathrooms." Oh, the impeccable caliber of your students, Chapman University. (Or, there's solid reasons why I don't know anyone over here from Chapman.)

On the Rome trip, I had the pleasure of meeting Katie and Taryn, roommates from Illinois State. After the day of non-stop travel, including a 4:45am meet for the bus, four hour ride and whirlwind tour of the Vatican, we seemed to be the only ones who could muster up enough energy to walk down to the Colosseum for some night shots.

Me, Katie and Taryn

Taryn shares my affinity for art, she was the first person I met who really did, and I'm so very grateful for it. She's in photography, painting and art restoration courses. She was actually in my Art Conservation Theory courses, but dropped it before we came to meet.

Katie is an all-around sweetheart, I'll be traveling through England, Ireland and Germany with her and a few of her friends over Spring Break. (We booked all our flights this afternoon, actually.) Taryn is hoping to catch up with us at the tail end of the week, hopefully in Germany.

My second field trip with LDM was to Venice for the opening weekend of Carnival. This one was an all around adventure, as my roommates and slept right through the 4:45am bus meet time, to wake up at 5:26am. (Horrifically precise, emblazoned in my memory.) The roommates (Lauren and Julie) were freaking out, so I called one of the instructors on the bus to let him know we were all ok, that we had simply overslept, and asked what he might have us do to catch up with them.

Julie, Lauren and Me (Disregard the Italian super-creeper.)

A few hours later we were on the two and a half hour train to Venice. Luckily I had brought my Italy travel guide to the train station, for entertainment when the train was delayed for an hour, as well as being perfectly informed as to how to navigate Venice and catch up with the rest of our group in San Marco's Square.

I had agreed to room with another girl, Karen, who I had also met on the Rome trip, but we caught a snag and I ended up with Lauren and Julie.

Karen is amazing. She's an artistic person as well, studying Interior Design at Colorado State. We went on an epic walk (something like five hours) last Sunday across the Arno to the South of Florence and we had a great time climbing on things and taking far too many photos of rusting metal and other remarkably beautiful things. We're heading back to the Boboli Gardens sometime next week.

An incredible rusting gate in a lucky Italian's driveway.

We spent some time together in Venice with another group of roommates, Erika, Melanie, Rachel and Laura, with whom I might travel with to Barcelona, Spain next weekend, and who live just around the corner from me.

Me, Erika, Melanie, Rachel, Laura and Karen

Venice was truly incredible, like walking through a fairytale, especially with all of the people dressed up so elaborately for Carnival. It was incredibly, outrageously, overwhelmingly crowded, but it was never uncomfortable. The whole city was jovial, excited for all the visitors and a weekend of merriment (and debauchery, to be sure).

I spent most of the second day we were in Venice with a boy named Nemo and a girl, Muriel. I don't remember where they were from, but Muriel works at Walt Disney World as a fuzzy, one of the indoctrinated and ill-informed ones. (Was that harsh?) Anyway, we had a great time wondering through the mobs and around the city, taking outrageous photos and looking for interesting things to eat or art to buy.

In Florence I bought three outstanding little watercolor pieces from artists around the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery and I thought I'd add a piece from Venice to my collection so I paid €10 for a brown monochromatic piece of a couple gondolas on the Grand Canal. When I opened it up later in the day and looked closely at it, it was easy to tell that it was a photocopy that had been water colored over. Pretty disappointing, but I know not to make that mistake again. I've looked very closely at the pieces I purchased here in Florence, and they're all legitimate.

Tomorrow I head to Paris with my roommates for the weekend. I want to see The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Musée d'Orsay and still get in a day at Disneyland Paris. (Though I'd much rather Megan and Jeff (or Brett, Sean, Graeme, Sean, Brittany, Jess, Santi, Harry, Beck, Chel or Tommy) were joining me, which could be said for all of these solitary adventures...)

We'll see how it goes!