SPQR

We arrived in Italy around 9 a.m. On the bus to the hotel I finished reading "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodie Picoult, which turned out to be a very good book. We went to Naples first, supposedly the birthplace of pizza. We had pasta. We toured around the city and saw a castle, Mt. Vesuvius in the distance, another castle and then we went for lunch. Instead of staying on the nice safe main road for lunch, my group decided, once again against my wishes, to wander down the back alleyways for lunch. We ended up at this little restaurant that refused to serve pizza until eight at night so we had pasta instead. It wasn't very good. I had better pasta later though so don't worry. Then we went and had Italian gelato which is the most delicious thing ever. We ended up having it twice a day everyday that we were in Italy.

After spending the night in Sorento we went to Pompeii the next day. Pompeii was extremely interesting, the city was so advanced. They had sewage pipes in the walls of the city to avoid stinking up the place, advertisments painted on the walls for food and politics and even running water. It was amazing how well preserved the city is, but hey, what else are burning hot clouds of volcanic ash good for? We did get to go see the people who were preserved which was horrifying/intriguing at the same time. They told us how the people died and it must have been awful. The heat of the volcanic ash before it started to fall on them was so high that it burned all the oxygen out of the air so that no one could move and they all were suffocating. While in the process of suffocating the volcanic ash fell on, burned, and encased them. Inside the houses some of the walls are still preserved with their original colors. It was odd to see and old Pompeiian house with pretty red and yellow painted walls and murals as well. After touring all around we went to the actual city center which was enormous and took pictures there. After lunch, we continued on to Mt. Vesuvius itself. It's kind of cold at the top of a volcano. We walked to the top which was sort of hard because it was a rather steep climb, and the top is just a big hole. I was hoping for maybe some lava or something like in Hawaii, but it's just a crater. Some of the rocks inside the crater steam though which was interesting. I took some rocks from the top and we climbed all over the cooled lava. From the top you can see a nearby town which I think is a rather dumb idea considering what happened to Pompeii, but to each his own I guess. After Vesuvius we all climbed back into the bus and drove to the outskirts of Rome to spend the night.

On Sunday we were originally slated to see the Vatican, but instead we toured the city of Rome, because Rotary said so. First we went to the Basilica of St. Giovani Laterno and then the Colosseum. The Colosseum was amazing. It was so big and inside they were able to flood the arena and fight on boats. We walked all around it and it was cool to know that I was walking where Romans had walked. I was literally doing what the Romans do when I was Rome. After lunch we went to the Forum Romanum or the ancient city center. It was gigantic. We walked around for an hour and a half and then got lost trying to find the exit and found Rotarians instead, who showed us the exit. As we were allowed to wander around the Forum Romanum in our own groups only half of us managed to find the right exit while the other half was lost for and extra hour and a half. Due to their geographical incapability we didn't get to see the Pantheon. From the Forum Romanum we continued on to Angel Castle from Angels and Demons. It was rather nice and had a great view of the city from the top. I felt as if I too was on the hunt for the Illuminati. (Not really) Anyways, next we went to the Di Trevi Fountain which I was told by every girl on the trip is in the Lizzy McGuire movie. It was a pretty amazing fountain that had a lot of symbolism. Apparently it tells the story of the Taming of the Waters in which Oceanus gives water to the people and the other statues show it's benefits such as not dying from dehydration and no longer reeking. We ended the day by going to the Spanish Steps which I had never heard of before and don't have a nice view at the top.

The next day we toured the Vatican. You start in the Vatican Museum and from there it leads to St. Peter's sqauare. Except for the Vatican Museum is enormous and it took my group three tries to find the exit to the square. We wandered through the huge halls which are all filled with gorgeous art and ended up in the Sistine Chapel, this is try number one, after looking around, and taking some illegal pictures, we took the left exit that put us back where we had started. After sitting in a little garden for some time we decided to try again. Try number two ends with us taking the same path as the first time but accidentally going into the egyptian art exhibit which put us back in the same place we had started from. Why the Vatican even has an egyptian art exhibit I don't know. Finally we managed to find the Sistine Chapel again and take the right exit, the one that has guards by it, wander down a big empty hallway, interrupt some sort of holy procession, and make it to the square. It's a really big square. We didnt' actually go into St. Peter's Basilica because we spent so much time being lost, but it was still a pretty square. The obelisk there is huge and we got to see where the smoke comes out when a new pope is being selected. Following the Vatican we had free time for four hours and then we left Rome.

On Tuesday we visited Siena in Tuscany and had really great pasta. I also bought some wine there which should hopefully be good. We were only there for about two hours so we didn't do very much other than eat lunch that day. We continued on to our next hotel and then had a very late dinner. Afterwards we finally had Italian Tiaramisu, which is REALLY hard to find there, and it was spectacular.

For our last day in Italy we went to Venice. It was weird seeing a city with no cars at all. We had the whole day to just wander so we spent the day trying to find an affordable gondola ride. Apparently it's usually 100 Euros to ride a gondola split between five people. Since we didn't want to pay 20 Euros each we waited until much later to go. After getting some more gelato I bought gifts for people and a ceramic Venetian mask for myself. Apparently Venice is famous for masks, which I was unaware of. We asked our gondalier why this was and he said that it was because of the black plague when people wore masks with long noses in an attempt to protect themselves. Venetian people decorated theirs the most and became famous for them. Yes, we did eventually find a gondalier who would take us for 10 Euros each and so we took a gondola ride. It was not as amazing as the movies make it seem, although it is very cool. We went around through the back canals and then out onto the main waterway. Earlier we had been sitting eating gelato on the banks of the main waterway and a policeboat came speeding by, causing huge waves to splash us. As we went down the main waterway in our gondola we saw the theater and all the houses that have doors that just open to water. It was very odd to see steps that just keep going down into the water and dissapear too. The water in Venice is apparently really gross and filled with oil, garbage, and human waste; luckily our gondola didn't capsize. After the gondola ride it was time to say goodbye to Venice and Italy and we got back on the bus for the overnight ride back to the Czech Republic.

The whole trip was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it, except those that made up the first 36 hour bus ride, and I hope that one day I can return to Greece and actually see Athens, and tour around Italy some more. My trip to the Ukraine has been cancelled because the entire town has set out to convince me not to go so I finally gave in and said fine I won't go. Rotary, the Kovariks, my English teachers, and all my friends were telling me not to go so I'm not. Also, as we would be spending the night at the top of a mountain I needed winter clothes, which I no longer have since I sent them home with my mother. So the next trip is to Poland, we'll be touring Krakow and Auschwitz with the future exchangers from the Czech Republic. After that we tour Bratislava, capitol of Slovakia, with Rotary. That's in two weeks so I'll posting again soon.

Opa!

Turns out nobody in Greece really says that. I don't think I heard it once when we were there. How dissapointing.

Anways, the day after my mother left I went to Greece. It started with a 36 hour bus ride, but we'll skip that horrible part. We finally arrive on Monday afternoon and went straight, not to a hotel, but sightseeing in Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece and home to some nice ruins. We saw the White Tower, a statue of Alexander the Great, the Arch of Galerius and the ruins of the ancient city center. Then we had free time to get lunch and wander around, we all had Gyros which were great.

The next day we were scheduled to go to an old Monastery and Delphi, but due to some unforseen construction we were forced to cancel Delphi and head to the Monasteries for the entire day. The monastery was very impressive. It is located at the top of some mountains, literally build at the very top. The stairs that lead to it are built right into the side of the mountain which was terrifying, but had a very nice view. My favorite part was the wooden bridge with nothing underneath it. The monks that live there still send a rope down everyday to bring up their daily supplies from the bottom of the mountain, we got to see the pulley system that they use. When we got there all the girls had to put on skirts out of respect for the area and then we got to just wander around. We got to see where the monks lived and a museum of religious artifacts which were really old. The monks have been living there for at least a thousand years and at the beginning it was just one monk and his two apprentices who lived in a shack at the top and the actually monastery building was built much later. After the monastery we got back on the bus for a long ride to the outskirts of Athens, where we would be staying that night. After checking into the hotel where we would be staying, we had free time again to go eat dinner. A group of us ended up going to this little family-owned diner and had spectacular zedziki and bread. A woman there spoke English and was able to teach us a couple words in Greek.

The next day we were scheduled to visit Athens, but that was cancelled due to rioting in the capitol that resulted in the deaths of three people. We all wanted to go and participate, but unfortunately Rotary had our saftey in mind... Instead we went to the Corinth Canal which had really blue water and later to the ampitheater at Epidaurus. We all walked to the top of the ampitheater to test out the acoustics while Rotarians made nosies at the bottom. They were so good that we could hear a Euro drop onto a rock, paper being ripped, and a match being lit. Then a girl from our group went to the bottom and sang and it was very nice. Next we went to the museum there and looked at all the ancient statues that once stood there. Upon our return to the hotel we went out for dinner again...to the same place. I was outvoted and we all went to the same restaurant that we had gone to the night before, which serves only seafood. Not my favorite dinner of the trip.

On Thursday we were going to see if we could give Athens a whirl, but to no avail. Instead we went to Delphi and then the port of Patra, the most dangerous city in Greece, and were allowed to wander there for lunch before taking the ferry to Italy. Delphi was not that impressive. I think it must have been at one point, but now it's just a pile of rocks. And a lot of pillars. Anyways, we walked to the top of the "mountain" that it's on and saw lots of ruins. All the steps in Greece are slippery because they're so smooth and it's hard to walk up them. At the top is a little arena and then went back down and went to the museum. Then we left for Patra. In Patra we went for some pasta and stayed in groups to avoid pickpockets and murderers, luckily we all made it back safely and got on the ferry. We took the overnight ferry from Patro to Brindisi in Italy and stayed in four person cabins. It was my first time on any sort of large boat which was interesting. We all stood out on the top and waved goodbye to Greece and then played in the wind. Onboard the ferry to Italy were Italians! Who spoke English! I was sitting with my Canadian friend Paige and then the Italians asked me if I too was Canadian. I said no, I'm an American. To which they replied, "But you obviously have Japanese parents." *Insert me rolling my eyes here* The number of times I have had people ask me if I'm South American or Asian is astounding. I don't even look Asian. It wouldn't be so irritating if they didn't all start with, "So do you speak Spanish?" No. I don't speak Spanish so get over it.

Maminka

Well by now my mom should be in Stockholm waiting for her flight back to Chicago. My mom got to come visit me for ten days and we were in Uhersky Brod, Prague and Berlin. Due to the volcanic ash cloud over Iceland my mom was twelve hours late so we missed out on spending a day in Vienna. She arrived in Vienna at ten p.m. and we got back to Uhersky Brod around midnight so it was straight to bed. The next day I showed my mom all around the town and on Friday I took her to see school and then we went to Buchlov Castle and Chateau and grilled out for dinner. On Saturday we drove to Prague and my host family showed us all around. We went to Prague Castle, Charle's Bridge, OldTown Square and then we just wandered around a bit. On Sunday we had a really good American breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, syrup and orange juice. At two thirty we took the train to Berlin and arrived around seven forty five. There, we met up with a nice family that we stayed with for three days. Their daughter is on exchange in Brookfield and goes to BEHS and our church. My mom knows her host family and offered to take her winter clothes home to Berlin and we got to stay with her family. They were extremely nice. They showed us all around Berlin. On Monday we went to a museum called The Story of Berlin which a comprehensive history of the city. It was extremely well done and the section about when the Berlin Wall was in the city was ridiculous. It's extremely hard to imagine the city when it was divided because, obviously, it no longer is, so when you go there it's hard to get a feel for what it must have been like to live there back then. After that we went back to the house because it started to rain. Later we went out with Claudia, the woman we were staying with, and we went to Potsdamer Platz to see the last remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall that are still standing where they were when they were first built. Potsdamer Platz is now a huge Sony Center with nice shops and a movie theater, but it used to be the wasteland between East and West Berlin. On Tuesday we went to a church that was destroyed to make way for the Berlin Wall and then reconstructed once The Wall fell. It was only partly reconstructed, but still very interesting. Later we went to the German Parliament building. It's an extremely unique piece of architecture. On the top of the building is a large glass dome that has two spiral staircases going up and large pyramidal mirror pointing down towards the bottom of the dome. As you walk up one of the staircases you can see the city and an audio tour explains what is what and its history. The dome is directly above the Parliament chamber where parliament meets so you can see where they sit because there's a large hole in the floor of the dome with glass over it. I really enjoyed it. On Wednesday we took the train back to Uhersky Brod from Berlin and that took the whole day. Then on Thursday we went to Olomouc which is the city where my current host mother went to university. She showed us around and we saw where she studied and a couple churches. Then for dinner we went over to the Hornaks', my first host family, house and my second host family was there as well as the president of Rotary club Uhersky Brod. We had a traditional Czech meal and then stayed and talked for a while. On Friday we went to the Komensky Museum. Jan Amos Komensky was a revolutionary educator when he lived and he wanted to make learning more like a game. He traveled Europe reforming the education system in many countries. Uhersky Brod is one of his three possible birthplaces. After that we went to meet the mayor and then went for lunch with a couple other Rotarians. It was another traditional Czech meal of duck and potatoes. After that we had some time to relax and mom packed. Then for dinner we went with one Rotarian and had a really good dinner. Finally we came back and mom made sure she had everything all ready to go for the morning. We all got up at two a.m. to take her to the airport and we got there around five for her seven o'clock flight to Stockholm. I slept on the way back and now I have to go because I leave for Greece tomorrow and haven't started packing yet. I'll be sure to post again once I get back and I had a really fun time with my mom.